50 
C63 


B    3    646    414 


Richard  M.  Holman 


BIOLCK 


A   NATURE   STUDY   READER 


v*« 

»*' 

ff.fi  r 


TJ 

t-rr-. 

r 

• 


Bamboo. 


A 

NATURE  STUDY  READER 


FOR   THE 


PHILIPPINE    ISLANDS 


BY 


JOHN   GAYLORD   COULTER,  PH.  D 

TEACHER   OF   BOTANY,    INSULAR   NORMAL   SCHOOL 


F-  ML  USTR4TED 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
1904 


BiOLOr 
LlBRARt 
G 


COPYRIGHT,    1904,  BY 
D.    APPLETON   AND    COMPANY 


MEMORIAL 


PREFACE 


SUCCESS  in  Nature  Study,  more  than  in  most  other  subjects, 
must  depend  upon  the  work-of  the  teacher.  The  following  chapters 
are  very  simple  in  treatment,  and  previous  training  in  botany  on  the 
part  of  the  teacher  is  not  at  all  essential,  yet  their  use  as  a  reading- 
text  alone  is  not  the  thing  expected.  The  pupils  should  make 
almost  constant  use  of  a  note-book  and  pencil.  The  plants 
described  have  been  chosen  chiefly  on  account  of  their  familiarity 
and  availability  throughout  the  Islands,  and  the  pupils  should  make 
their  sketches  directly  from  nature.  They  seem  to  take  consid- 
erable pride  in  the  preparation  of  such  a  "  Nature  Study  note-book," 
and  it  is  the  best  aid  to  accurate  observation.  The  teacher  can 
easily  extend  the  range  of  topics  studied.  The  thirty  chapters 
should  not  be  exhausted  in  less  than  sixty  or  seventy  lessons. 

Fundamental  principles  have  been  presented  through  the 
medium  of  familiar  examples,  rather  than  as  independent  topics, 
simply  because  it  has  been  the  experience  of  the  writer  that  the 
subject  "  teaches  better"  that  way,  at  least  in  such  very  elementary 
presentation.  Thus,  the  familiar  papaya  is  made  the  means  of 
acquaintance  with  the  uses  of  the  various  parts  of  the  plant,  rather 

3 

921851 


vi  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

than  to  take  up  the  topics  "root,"  "  leaves,"  "  flowers,"  etc.,  in 
more  abstract  form.  The  banana  serves  to  show  methods  of  repro- 
duction. Through  pandan,  pollination  and  the  light-relation  of 
leaves  are  introduced.  This  scheme  is  followed  throughout.  At 
some  points  the  text  is  suggestive  rather  than  explicit,  for  the  Fili- 
pino pupil  in  Nature  Study  classes  has  shown  himself  quite  capable 
of  seeing  the  more  evident  reasons  for  himself.  Numerous  ques- 
tions are  asked  whose  answers,  though  simple,  are  to  be  found  out- 
side the  covers  of  the  book.  It  is  urged  that  the  teacher  shall  make 
the  questioning  so  far  as  possible  of  this  character. 

JOHN  GAYLORD  COULTER. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. — WHAT  THIS  BOOK  is  ABOUT .        i 

II. — ABOUT  THE  PAPAYA ••        •        •        5 

III. — STORY  OF  THE  YOUNG  PAPAYA 9 

IV. — ABOUT  PAPAYA  FLOWERS •        •       X3 

V. — THE  USES  OF  PLANTS  TO  MAN  .        .  *7 

VI. — THE  USEFUL  PLANTS  OF  THE  PHILIPPINE  ISLANDS 22 

VII— THE  BANANA •        •  '     •        •        -27 

VIII. — MORE  ABOUT  THE  BANANA •      ...      32 

IX. — PANDAN;  A  SHORE-LOVER *        .        •        •      38 

X. — PANDAN;  A  WIND-LOVER •        .        .43 

XI. — GUMAMELA 47 

XII. — MACAHIA;  THE  SHAME-PLANT    .        .  .        .        •        *        •        »        .52 

XIII.— ABOUT  RICE ...        .        .      56 

XIV. — RICE-CULTIVATION •  '     *        •        .61 

XV. — THE  WORK  OF  GREEN  LEAVES 66 

XVI.— LANTANA 69 

XVII.— PANDACAQUI 74 

XVIII.— ILANG-ILANG 78 

XIX.— CACAO 83 

XX.— AURORA  ;   A  VINE 88 

XXL— MANGO 92 

vii 


viii  A   NATURE   STUDY   READER 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII.— THE  SOIL     ..............  97 

XXIII.— TOBACCO      .                          ...........  101 

XXIV. — LANSONES .  106 

XXV. — THE  COCONUT-PALM     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .         .         .in 

XXVI.— GUAVA  OR  BAY  ABAS .'......  116 

XXVII.— COFFEE 122 

XXVIII. — PINA  OR  PINEAPPLE ,                127 

XXIX.— CALACHUCHE 132 

. — DAP-DAP  AND  SPANISH  FLAG      ..........  137 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


FULL-PAGE   CUTS   IN   COLORS 

PAGE 
Bamboo   .          ,.  .  .  *  ."•         ...  .  .  .          •  •  .Frontispiece 

Lacatan  .                   .     •    .                  .         ...                  •  31 

Lantana  .         .         ...         .         .         .•        •         •         •         •        *•                  •         •  71 

Cacao      .         .         .'..'.         ... •      „•        .85 

Lansones          .         ....         .        *         .         .         .         •         •        •       *•         •         •  IQ8 

Coffee       .         ...:-_;.-        .      "•         .     •    .         .         .         .'        .         .         .        .  '      .        -123 

Dap-dap            ...         .         .         .         .  '       •         •"'•-.               •         •         •      :  •         •         •  J38 

Spanish  Flag    .         .         .         .         ,         .         .         .         .        •.         .         .        ..        ...  141 

OTHER   ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  dry  country           .         .         . ..         .         .  a 

An  agricultural  country    .                   .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         •         .         .         .  3 

American  harvester  and  thresher      .         .      ;  .         •         .         .         •         •         «         •         ...  4 

The  man-papaya      .         .         .         .         .         .      '  .         .         .         .         .       ,.  -      «         .         •  7 

A  young  plant  coming  from  the  seed         .    t     .         «...         .         .         .         •         •  9 

Another  young  plant,  with  roots  further  advanced             .         .     '   .         .         .         .         .         .  10 

The  woman -papaya          .         .        >         ..        .         .        ..;      .«        .         ...                 .         .  12 

Flower  of  the  man-papaya        .         '.  -       ~       -•  '       •         .  ;•      .         .         .         •         .         ..      .,.  14 

Flower  of  the  man -papaya  showing  stamens    .         .     ^  ».  v      .         .         .         .         .        ..     ,   .  14 

Flower  and  young  fruit  of  the  woman-papaya       .;  .         .         .         .         .^       •         •      *.         «  15 

Papaya  ovary  cut  open    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         »  15 

Flower  branch  of  the  man-papaya   .                   16 

Loading  sacks  of  flour               . i? 

Irrigation  of  sugar  beets 19 

The  timber  industry 20 

Gathering  flax  for  linen  manufacture 21 

A  rice  field 23 

Harvesting  hemp 25 

Gathering  sugar-cane 26 

Banana  plants  in  a  conservatory .28 

A  banana  plantation 33 

ix 


X  A   NATURE   STUDY    READER 

PAGE 

Butuhan           ....                  .                                    34 

The  flower  of  butuhan 36 

The  flower  of  butuhan  with  petals  removed .,...36 

Loading  a  ship  with  bananas  .                   37 

A  small  pandan,  showing  the  prop  roots           ..........  39 

Pandan              .......          42 

Flowers  of  the  man-pandan 44 

Stamens  from  the  man-pandan         .                   44 

Butterflies  gathering  pollen  and  nectar 46 

Gumamela        . 48 

One-half  of  the  flower  of  gumamela 49 

Leaf  of  gumamela  from  near  the  bottom          ..........  50 

Leaf  of  gumamela  from  near  the  top 51 

Macahia 53 

Fruit  of  macahia 54 

Flower  of  macahia 55 

Flower  of  macahia  cut  open     ...........         t-         .  55 

Three  kinds  of  Philippine  rice 58 

Taking  the  rice  home ,60 

Gang-plow        ................  62 

Drill  for  planting  seed 63 

Machine  for  threshing  rice 64 

Portable  steam-engine 65 

Lantana  flower         .                   72 

Pandacaqui 75 

Pandacaqui  flowrer 77 

Ilang-ilang .  80 

Flower  of  ilang-ilang,  showing  nectar  guides 81 

Flower  of  ilang-ilang,  showing  stamens  and  carpels 83 

Flowers  of  cacao 86 

Aurora     . 89 

FlowTer  of  aurora  cut  open 91 

Mango               .         „ 94 

Tobacco  .         .         .         .         .         .         . 103 

Coconut -palm  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         . .  113 

Inflorescence  of  coconut-palm 114 

Guava,  or  bayabas 118 

Flower  of  guava,  cut  in  half 120 

A  coffee  plantation    ..         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         ..126 

Pina,  or  pineapple 129 

Calachuche      .                            133 

A  single  flower  of  the  Spanish  Flag           ,                            143 


A   NATURE   STUDY   READER 


CHAPTER   I 

WHAT    THIS    BOOK    IS    ABOUT 

NATURE  STUDY  is  the  study  of  all  things  out-of-doors  which 
men  have  not  made.  Almost  always  the  first  things  you  see  out-of- 
doors  are  the  plants.  Plants  form  the  natural  covering  of  nearly 
all  the  land  surfaces  of  the  earth.  They  are  living  things,  just  as 
men  and  other  animals  are  living  things.  Without  plants,  men 
and  other  animals  would  die.  This  book  tells  about  some  of  the 
common  plants  of  the  Philippine  Islands. 

In  every  country  of  the  world  plants  are  very  important  in  the 
life  of  men,  but  in  no  country  are  they  more  important  than  in  the 
Philippine  Islands.  What  do  you  think  would  happen  to  the 
Filipino  people  if  all  the  plants  died  to-morrow  ?  How  long  do 
you  think  the  people  could  live  ? 

Many  parts  of  the  world  can  not  be  used  for  the  growing  of 
plants  which  produce  food  and  other  valuable  products  because  the 
soil  is  not  fertile.  Regions  of  the  earth  whose  soil  produces  very 
few  plants  are  called  desert  regions.  People  who  live  in  such  parts 
of  the  world  must  get  much  of  their  food  from  other  parts.  A 
country  whose  chief  industry  is  the  growing  of  plants  to  produce 
food  for  other  parts  of  the  world  is  called  an  agricultural  country. 
The  Philippine  archipelago  will  become  one  of  the  best  agricultural 


•;&>:,  -V  >  »rv"     .' .Y.X  A    NATURE   STUDY    READER 

countries  in  the  world  when  her  people  have  learned  how  to  make 
the  most  out  of  her  rich  lands.  This  is  one  reason  why  it  is 
important  for  you  to  learn  about  plants  and  how  they  live. 

All  our  food  and  nearly  all  our  money  come  from  plants.     We 
have  food  which   comes  from  animals,  but  the  animals  get   their 

food  from  plants. 
So  if  there  were 
no  plants  there 
would  be  no 
animals. 

It  is  not  so 
easy  to  see  how 
nearly  all  the 
money  of  the 
Filipino  people 
comes  from 
plants,  but  it  is 
just  as  true. 
Many  countries 
are  rich  because 
they  have  mines 

of  gold  and  silver,  or  mines  of  copper  and  iron  and  coal.  Other 
countries  are  rich  because  they  have  great  factories  where  clothing 
and  shoes,  tools  and  machinery,  and  many  other  necessary  things 
are  made.  The  Filipino  people  do  not  have  many  factories  and 
have  very  few  mines.  They  have  instead  a  country  in  which  many 
of  the  most  valuable  plants  in  the  world  can  grow,  and  nearly  all 
their  money  comes  from  selling  the  products  of  these  plants.  Much 
money  is  paid  for  the  products  of  all  the  mines,  and  much  is  paid 
for  the  products  of  the  factories,  but  both  together  are  not  worth 


A  dry  country  (Arizona),   producing  very  few  plants. 


WHAT   THIS   BOOK    IS    ABOUT  3 

so  much  as  the  products  of  the  plants  of  the  world.  Men  could 
live  without  factories  and  they  could  live  without  mines,  but  without 
plants  they  would  very  soon  die. 

If  the  Filipino  people  use  their  rich  land  to  produce  in  the  best 
way  the  many  valuable  plants  which  grow  here,  they  will  become 
quite  as  rich  and  prosperous  as  people  who  have  many  mines  and 
factories.  In  other  countries  it  is  not  possible  to  grow  many  of  the 
valuable  plants  which  grow  here,  and  the  people  of  these  countries 
are  glad  to  pay  a  good  price  for  the  plant-products  of  our  fertile 
islands.  So  it  will  be  a  very  good  thing  for  the  Filipino  people  when 
they  have  learned  how  to  produce  enough  plant-products  for  their 
own  use  and 
much  besides  to 
export  to  other 
countries. 

In  these 
beautiful  and  fer- 
tile islands  it  is 
possible  to  pro- 
duce more  than 
five  times  as 
much  as  is  now 
produced.  At 
this  time  (1904) 
the  Filipino  peo- 
ple buy  from 
other  countries 
just  as  much  as 

they  sell  to  them.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  no  people  can  become  very 
rich  until  they  sell  more  than  they  buy.  When  our  Filipino  farmers 


An  agricultural  country.     Reaping  and  loading  wheat  by 
machinery  in  the  Western  States. 


4 


A' -NATURE   STUDY   READER 


have  learned  how  to  get  the  best  crops  from  their  farms,  this  may 
become  true  for  the  Philippines. 

In  Nature  Study  you  will  gain  knowledge  which  is  necessary  for 
a  good  understanding  of  the  best  ways  to  cultivate  plants.  The  prod- 
ucts of  plants  are  made  much  more  valuable  when  the  plants  are 


American  harvester  and  thrasher  combined. 


cultivated.  To  cultivate  a  plant  means  to  help  it  grow.  Rice  is  a 
cultivated  plant  because  the  farmer  works  hard  to  help  it  grow  and 
produce  a  good  crop  of  rice  seeds.  In  Nature  Study  you  will  learn 
something  of  the  cultivation  of  plants.  You  will  learn  how  plants 


ABOUT   THE   PAPAYA  5 

live  and  how  they  produce  their  young.  You  will  learn  what  are 
their  friends  and  what  are  their  enemies.  When  we  cultivate  plants 
we  help  their  friends  and  try  to  destroy  their  enemies.  You  will 
learn  that  animals  are  necessary  helpers  in  the  cultivation  of  plants. 
You  will  learn  the  work  which  each  of  the  different  parts  of  the  plant 
has  to  do,  and  how  this  work  is  done. 

Plants  which  men  do  not  cultivate  are  called  wild  plants. 
Many  valuable  plants  grow  wild  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  Culti- 
vated plants  grow  in  the  fields  and  in  the  gardens.  Wild  plants  grow 
in  the  forests  and  along  the  shores  and  in  many  other  places.  It 
would  be  very  hard  to  find  a  place  in  the  Philippine  Islands  where 
neither  wild  nor  cultivated  plants  can  grow. 

Most  of  the  plants  which  you  will  study  about  in  this  book  are 
cultivated  plants,  but  the  very  first  one  you  are  to  study  about  is  a 
plant  which  is  very  common,  but  which  grows  without  cultivation. 
It  is  the  papaya. 


CHAPTER   II 

ABOUT    THE    PAPAYA 

THE  papaya  is  a  plant  which  grows  everywhere  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  and  has  very  few  enemies.  You  have  already  learned  that 
plants  have  friends  and  enemies.  Thus,  the  grasshoppers  and  dry 
weather  are  great  enemies  of  the  rice. 

Since  the  papaya  has  very  few  enemies  which  it  is  not  able  to 
overcome,  it  is  not  necessary  for  men  to  cultivate  it  or  help  it  grow. 
The  fruit  of  the  papaya  is  good  food  and  it  seems  to  be  about  as 


6  A    NATURE   STUDY    READER 

good  when  the  papaya  grows  wild  as  when  it  is  cultivated,  but  the 
ffuit  will  grow  larger  when  some  of  the  young  fruits  are  cut  away  to 
give  the  others  more  room. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  the  papaya  has  very  few  enemies  is 
because  it  can  live  in  ground  which  other  plants  cannot  use.  It  is 
common  to  see  the  papaya  growing  among  rocks  where  the  soil  is 
very  poor.  For  this  reason  other  plants  do  not  try  to  crowd  it  out, 
as  the  macahia  tries  to  crowd  out  the  rice.  The  papaya  is  a  very 
strong  and  healthy  plant.  If  it  were  not  strong  and  healthy  it  could 
not  grow  so  well  where  the  soil  is  very  poor  and  dry. 

The  life  of  papaya  is  something  like  the  life  of  the  wild 
people  who  live  in  the  mountains  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  These 
people  take  the  poor  parts  of  the  islands  for  their  homes  and  so  the 
other  people  leave  them  alone,  for  no  one  cares  to  crowd  them  out 
of  the  poor  places.  In  the  same  way  the  papaya  takes  the  poor  parts 
of  the  soil  for  its  home  and  the  other  plants  do  not  try  to  crowd 
it  out. 

Every  Filipino  boy  or  girl  knows  that  there  are  two  kinds  of 
papaya.  What  do  you  call  the  two  kinds?  In  English  they  may  be 
called  the  man-papaya  and  the  woman-papaya.  How  can  you  tell 
these  two  kinds  of  papaya  apart?  Are  the  leaves  different?  Are 
the  stems  different  ?  Are  they  the  same  height  ?  Do  they  have 
the  same  kind  of  flowers  ?  Do  both  kinds  produce  fruit  ? 

The  papaya  is  a  very  good  plant  for  us  to  study  first  because  it 
will  show  many  things  about  the  life  of  plants  which  are  more  diffi- 
cult to  see  in  other  plants.  The  life  of  one  plant  is  very  much  like 
the  life  of  all  the  rest,  so  that  what  we  learn  by  studying  the  papaya 
is  true  also  for  thousands  of  other  plants. 

The  papaya  shows  very  plainly  the  different  parts  of  the  flower. 
Since  there  are  two  kinds  of  papaya  flowers  we  find  in  each  kind  of 


ABOUT   THE   PAPAYA 


flower  just  one-half  of  the  parts  which  we  find  in  a  perfect  flower. 
Plants  which  have  just  one  kind  of  flower  must  have  all  the  flower- 
parts  together  and  we 
call  these  flowers  perfect 
flowers.  The  gumamela, 
for  example,  has  perfect 
flowers.  But  the  papaya 
has  half  the  flower-parts 
in  the  flower  of  the  man- 
papaya  and  the  other  half 
in  the  flower  of  the  woman- 
papaya.  You  can  easily 
see  in  the  pictures  the 
difference  between  these 
two  kinds  of  flowers.  By 
looking  carefully  at  the 
flower  of  the  woman- 
papaya,  and  then  at  the 
flower  of  the  man-papaya, 
can  you  see  why  one  pro- 
duces fruit  and  the  other 
does  not  ? 

Have  you  ever  seen 
a  papaya-fruit  upon  a  man- 
papaya  tree  ?  Sometimes 
a  small  fruit  is  formed  at 
the  very  end  of  the  flower- 
branch  of  the  man-papaya. 
When  you  see  such  a  tree, 

yOU   should   look   Carefully  The  man-papaya. 


A   NATURE    STUDY    READER 

to  see  whether  the  flower  at  the  end  of  the  flower-branch  is  different 
from  the  others.  Are  the  flowers  from  the  woman-papaya  borne  on 
branches  or  on  the  main  stem  ? 

How  soon  can  you  tell  whether  a  young  papaya  is  going  to  be 
a  man-tree  or  a  woman-tree  ?  How  high  does  the  plant  grow  before 
it  begins  to  produce  flowers?  Some  people  say  that  if  you  cut  off 
the  stem  of  a  young  man-papaya  tree  just  after  it  has  produced  its 
first  flowers  it  will  become  a  woman-papaya  when  it  grows  up  again. 
Do  you  know  whether  this  is  true  ? 

The  stems  of  the  papaya  are  very  different  from  the  stems  of 
other  plants.  When  you  break  off  one  of  the  old  leaves  of  the 
papaya  it  leaves  a  mark  on  the  stem.  Have  you  ever  noticed  these 
marks?  Can  you  see  them  better  on  the  old  part  of  the  stem  or  on 
the  young  part  at  the  top  ? 

Since  the  leaves  of  papaya  are  very  large  it  is  not  necessary  for 
the  plant  to  have  many  of  them.  They  are  all  borne  at  the  top  of 
the  stem.  The  top  part  of  the  stem  and  the  leaves  form  what 
is  called  the  crown  of  the  plant.  What  other  common  plant  has 
very  large  leaves  and  only  a  few  of  them  in  a  crown  at  the  top  of  the 
stem  ? 

The  papaya  grows  in  many  other  tropical  countries  besides  the 
Philippine  Islands,  and  everywhere  in  the  tropics  its  fruit  is  good  to 
eat.  In  temperate  countries  like  the  United  States  the  papaya  may 
be  grown  in  the  gardens  if  it  is  protected  from  the  cold  of  winter, 
but  in  these  countries  it  does  not  produce  good  fruit. 

The  parts  of  a  plant  which  are  underground  are  called  roots.  Do 
the  roots  of  the  papaya  go  very  deeply  into  the  ground  or  are  they 
near  the  surface  ?  Are  the  papaya-plants  blown  down  easily  by 
storms  ?  Do  young  papaya-plants  ever  grow  up  from  the  bottom  of 
the  old  papaya-plants  like  the  young  bananas  which  grow  from  the 


STORY   OF   THE   YOUNG   PAPAYA  9 

bottom  of  the  old  banana-plant  ?  How  do  you  think  the  young 
papaya  grows  ?  In  the  next  lesson  you  will  read  the  story  of  the 
young  papaya. 


CHAPTER   III 

STORY    OF    THE    YOUNG    PAPAYA 

THE  young  papaya  grows  up  from  a  seed.     Do  you 
know  what  a  seed  is?     Inside  the  ripe  fruit  of  papaya 
many  small,  round  bodies  may  be  found.     These,  are  the 
seeds.     When  the  seeds  are  scattered  in  a  good  place 
on  the  ground  they  will    begin    to   grow  into   young 
papaya-plants,    unless    the    chickens    or 
some  other  enemies  find  them  and  eat 
them  up. 

Now  a  plant  must  have  food  just  like 
men  and  animals.     When  the  papaya  is 
a  very  young  plant  indeed  it  gets  its  food 
from  inside  the  seed,  but  soon  the  young 
papaya  has  grown  larger  and  has  eaten 
up  all  the  food  which  was  stored  for  it 
It  is  like  a  little  chick  which  has  just 
broken  out  of  the  egg-shell.      Before  the  little  chick  is 
hatched  it  finds  its  food  inside  the  egg,  but  when  it  has 
grown  so  big  that  it  breaks  the  shell  it  must  begin  to 
scratch   for  its  own   food.     So   the  young  papaya   must 
begin  to  find  its  own  food  after  it  has  eaten  everything 
inside  the  seed. 


A  young  plant  coming 
from  the  seed,  show- 
ing root  and  stem. 

inside  the  seed. 


IO 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


The  little  chick  has  three  parts  which  help  it  get  its  food.  It 
has  eyes  to  look  for  food,  legs  to  run  and  get  it,  and  a  beak  for  pick- 
ing it  up. 

The  young  papaya  has  nothing  like  eyes  and  legs  and  beak,  yet 
it  must  have  food  just  like  the  chick.  The  three  parts  of  the  papaya 
which  help  it  for  this  purpose  we  call  the  root,  the  stem,  and  the 
leaves.  Since  the  papaya  can  not  run  around  and  find  its  food,  you 
might  think  that  it  gets  its  food  in  the  ground  where 
it  grows  and  that  the  food  is  taken  up  by  the  roots. 
But  this  is  not  quite  true.  If  the  root  took  up  the 
food  of  the  papaya  what  do  you  think  the  stem  and 
the  big  leaves  would  be  for  ?  Why  would  not  the 
whole  plant  live  underground  where  the  food  is  ? 
No,  the  food  of  the  papaya  does  not  come  from 
the  ground.  It  comes  from  the  leaves.  You  won- 
der how  the  leaves  get  the  food  of  the  papaya. 
Do  they  get  it  from  the  air  ?  Do  they  get  it  from 
the  water  which  comes  up  to  the  leaves 
from  the  ground  ?  No,  the  leaves  do  not 
get  the  food  of  the  papaya-plant  at  all. 
They  make  it.  The  leaves  of  the  papaya 
are  like  little  workshops  and  in  them  the 
food  of  the  plant  is  made. 

You  can  see  that  in  this  way  the 
young  papaya  is  very  different  from  the 
young  chick.  Both  must  have  food,  but 
the  chick  goes  around  and  finds  its  own 
food,  while  the  food  of  the  papaya  is  made 

in  its  leaves.     This  is  a  thing  which  you  should  remember  very 
well,  for  it  is  a  thing  that  makes  the  lives  of  plants  very  different 


Another   young    plant,    with 
roots  further  advanced. 


STORY  OF  THE.  YOUNG  PAPAYA  II 

from  the  lives  of  animals.  Each  must  have  food,  and  what  is 
food  for  a  plant  is  also  food  for  an  animal,  but  the  great  differ- 
ence is  that  an  animal  gets  its  food  already  made,  but  a  plant 
makes  its  own  food. 

After  we  have  learned  that  the  leaves  of  the  papaya  are  for 
making  the  food  of  the  plant,  we  should  learn  what  the  roots  and 
the  stems  are  for.  Let  us  think  of  a  young  papaya  which  has  used 
up  all  .the  food  inside  the  seed.  What  is  it  going  to  do  next  ?  Can 
the  young  leaves  begin  to  make  food  without  any  help  from  the 
roots  and  the  stem  ?  No,  the  roots  and  the  stem  must  help.  If  we 
could  watch  a  young  papaya  as  it  begins  to  grow,  we  would  see  that 
the  first  part  of  the  plant  which  comes  out  from  the  seed  is  the  little 
root.  This  is  the  part  of  the  plant  which  must  begin  the  work  of  help- 
ing to  make  food. 

If  we  are  going  to  make  a  dress  or  a  coat,  the  first  thing  we  must 
do  is  to  get  the  cloth  out  of  which  the  coat  or  the  dress  is  to  be  made. 
In  the  same  way  the  young  papaya  must  get  the  material  out  of 
which  food  is  made,  and  it  is  the  work  of  the  root  to  get  this  material. 
So  the  young  root  begins  to  grow  down  into  the  soil  and  there  it 
finds  the  things  which  the  leaves  know  how  to  make  into  food. 
These  things  are  in  the  water  of  the  soil,  and  when  the  root  takes  up 
this  water  it  takes  into  the  plant  the  things  which  are  in  the  water. 
You  all  know  that  there  is  salt  in  the  water  of  the  sea.  You  all 
know  that  when  you  put  a  lump  of  sugar  into  coffee  it  is  soon 
dissolved  in  the  coffee.  In  the  same  way  the  things  which  the 
plant  uses  in  making  its  food  are  dissolved  in  the  water  of  the  soil. 

While  the  root  of  the  young  papaya  has  been  growing  down 
into  the  soil,  the  stem  has  been  growing  up  into  the  sunlight. 
When  the  stem  has  grown  up  a  little  way  the  young  leaves  begin 
to  unfold  and  spread  out  in  the  light.  They  seem  to  be  trying  to 


12 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


get  all  the  light  they  can.      Light  is  necessary  to  help  the  leaves 

make  food. 

Perhaps  you  can  think  for  yourselves  now  what  the  stem  is  for. 

When  the  leaves  have  opened  up  and  the  light  is  shining  on  them, 

they  are  ready  to  begin  the  work 
of  making  food.  Already  the 
root  has  begun  to  take  up  the 
water  of  the  soil  and  in  this  wa- 
ter are  the  things  out  of  which 
the  leaves  can  make  food.  The 
water  passes  along  the  stem  un- 
til it  reaches  the  young  leaves. 
Then  the  little  workshops  begin 
their  work.  All  day  while  the 
light  is  shining  on  them  they 
are  busy  making  food  for  the 
plant.  In  the  night  the  food 
which  is  made  in  the  leaves  of 
the  young  papaya  passes  into 
the  stem  and  goes  to  feed  all 

o 

the  hungry  parts  of  the  plant. 
Now  you  can  see  what  each 

of    these    three    parts    of    the 

young  papaya-plant  has  to  do. 

Every  part  of  a  plant  has  some 

work  to  do. 

It  is  the  work  of  the  root 

to  hold  the  plant  firmly  in  the 

ground  and  to  get  the  material  out  of  which  the  leaves  can  make 
food. 


The  woman-papaya. 


ABOUT   PAPAYA   FLOWERS  13 

It  is  the  work  of  the  leaves  to  make  food  for  the  plant. 
They  could  not  do  this  work  without  the  sunlight  which  gives  them 
the  power  to  do  it. 

The  stem  has  three  kinds  of  work.  First,  to  lift  the  leaves  up 
into  the  sunlight.  Second,  to  carry  up  to  the  leaves  the  water  which 
comes  from  the  root.  Third,  to  carry  the  food  which  is  made  in  the 
leaves  down  to  all  hungry  parts  of  the  plant. 


CHAPTER   IV 

ABOUT    PAPAYA    FLOWERS 

AFTER  the  young  papaya  has  learned  how  to  use  its  roots  and 
stems  and  leaves,  it  grows  very  rapidly.  Do  you  know  how  long  it 
takes  a  papaya  to  grow  up  from  a  seed  and  bear  fruit  ?  There  are 
some  trees  which  take  eight  or  ten  years  to  become  as  large  as  a  full- 
grown  papaya,  but  if  you  watch  a  young  papaya  you  may  see  that 
it  grows  several  inches  in  a  few  weeks. 

The  food  which  is  made  in  the  leaves  is  used  in  making  the 
new  parts  of  the  plant.  When  the  papaya  has  learned  how  to  find 
its  food  and  how  to  grow  you  might  think  that  it  has  learned  all 
there  is  for  a  plant  to  do.  It  is  true  that  the  young  papaya  could 
become  a  large  and  an  old  plant  by  the  work  of  its  stems  and 
its  roots  and  its  leaves  alone,  but  there  is  another  very  important 
work  which  the  papaya  must  do  before  it  dies.  The  work  of  the 
roots  and  the  stems  and  the  leaves  is  not  enough.  There  is  the  work 
of  the  flowers  and  the  fruit  and  the  seeds  yet  to  be  done.  The 
work  of  roots,  stems,  and  leaves  is  simply  the  work  of  living  and  is 


Flower  of  the 
man-papaya. 


14  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

called  nutrition.  The  work  of  the  flowers,  fruit,  and  seeds  is  the 
work  of  producing  new  papaya-plants,  and  is  called  the  work  of 
reproduction.  Plants  die  and  plants  are  born  just  like  animals. 
Each  plant  before  it  dies  must  produce  other  young  plants,  or  soon 
there  would  be  none  left  in  the  world. 

Now  you  must  learn  how  the  papaya  produces  its  young.  You 
have  already  learned  that  the  young  papayas  come  from  seeds,  but 
you  have  not  learned  how  the  seeds  are  produced. 
You  may  learn  this  by  studying  the  flowers  of  papaya, 
for  it  is  the  work  of  the  flowers  to  produce  the  fruit 
and  the  seeds.  The  papaya  is  a  good  plant  to  show 
you  the  work  of  flowers,  because  it  has  two  kinds  of 
flowers.  One  kind  does  part  of  the  work  and  the 
other  kind  does  the  other  part.  Each  kind  of  flower 
is  quite  simple. 

First  look  at  the  flowers  of  the  man-papaya.     They  are  much 
smaller  than  the  flowers  of  the  woman-papaya  and  there  are  many 
more  of  them.     On  the  outside  you  find  five  white 
parts  which  are  like  simple  little  leaves.    These  five 
white  little  leaves  form  a  part  of  the  flower  which 
is  called  the  corolla.     Each  of  the  little  leaves  is 
called  a  petal.      In  the  lower  part  of  the  flower  the 
petals  are  united  in  the  form  of  a  tube.     Now  if 
you  look  in  the  center  of  a  ripe  man-flower  you  will 
find  at  the  top  of  this  tube  several  small  yellow 
parts.     You  can  see  these  yellow  parts  better  if  you 
take  a  sharp  knife  and  split  the   tube.     Then  by 
looking  carefully  you  will   find  that  there  are  ten  of  these  small 
yellow  parts.     There  are  five  in  a  ring  on  the  outside  and  five  in  a 
ring  on  the  inside.     The  outer  ones  are  just  twice  as  long  as  the 


Flower  of  the  man- 
papaya  cut  open 
to  show  the  sta- 


ABOUT    PAPAYA    FLOWERS 


inner  ones.     These  small  yellow  parts  of  the  man-flower  are  called 

stamens.     You  can  see  the  stamens  very  well  in  the  picture  of  the 

man-flower. 

In  the  tops  of  the  stamens,  when  they  are  ripe,  you  can  find  a 

little  yellow  powder,  finer  than  dust.      This  yellow  powder  is  called 

pollen.      It  is  the  work  of  the  man- 
flowers  to  produce  this  pollen.     You 

will  learn  what  the  pollen  is  for  when 

you  study  the  woman-flower. 

The  woman-flower  is  much  larger. 

It,  too,  has  five  petals,  but  each  one  is 

six  or  seven  times  as  large  as  a  petal  of 

a  man-flower,  and  they  are  not  joined 

together  at  the  bottom.     It  is  in  the 

center  of   the  woman-flower  that  we 

find   the   most  important  part.     This 

part  is  called  the  pistil.     At  the  top  of 

the  pistil  there  are  five  short  branches 

and  each  of  these  little  branches  is  branched  again.  Can  you  see 
this  part  of  the  pistil  in  the  picture  of  the  woman- 
flower  ?  It  is  called  the  stigma.  Below  the  stigma 
we  find  a  much  larger  part  which  is  nearly  round. 
If  you  cut  this  part  open  you  will  find  inside  of  it 
the  very  young  seeds.  This  round  part  is  called  the 
ovary  and  the  very  young  seeds  are  called  ovules. 
The  ovary  becomes  the  fruit.  Can  you  find  an  ovary 

Ovary   cut   open,       in    the  man-floweiS  ? 

showing    stig-  Suppose  there  were  no  man-papaya  plants.     Do 

ma  at  the  top  think  that  the  ovary  would  become  a  ripe  fruit 

and  very  young       J  ' 

seed  within.         with  good  seeds  inside  of  it?    If  the  ovary  can  be- 


Flower  and  young  fruit  of  the 
woman-papaya. 


16  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

come  a  good  fruit  without  the  help  of  the  man-flowers,  then 
what  are  the  man-flowers  for  ?  But  we  find  that  if  there  were 
no  man-papaya  trees  there  could  be  no  good  fruit  and  seed. 
The  man-papaya  is  very  important  in  helping  make  the  fruit 
and  seed. 

Now  you  can  understand  the  purpose  of  the  pollen.  The 
pollen  of  the  man-flowers  is  necessary  to  help  the  woman-flowers 
produce  fruit.  The  pollen  must  be  brought  from  the  man-flowers  to 
the  stigma  of  the  woman-flowers.  The  stigma  is  for  the  purpose  of 
receiving  the  pollen.  After  the  pollen  has  reached  the  stigma,  the 
petals  of  the  woman-flower  fall  off,  and  presently  the  stigma  withers 
up,  but  the  ovary  grows  larger  and  larger  until  at  last  it  becomes  the 

ripe  fruit  of  papaya.  In  this 
ripe  fruit  are  many  hundred 
seeds,  each  one  of  which  can 
produce  a  new  plant  if  it  falls 
in  a  good  place. 

You  have  learned  that  the 

Flower  branch   of   man-papaya,  bearing  small  ,,  ,        ,  ,        r 

fruit  at  the  end.  P°llen    mUSt    be    brought    from 

the  man-flower  to  the  woman- 
flower.  But  you  have  not  learned  how  this  is  done.  Can  you  think 
how  the  pollen  may  be  brought  from  one  flower  to  another  ? 

You  will  learn  in  another  lesson  how  this  is  done.  You  will 
learn  that  there  are  little  messengers  that  carry  pollen  from  one 
flower  to  another.  You  will  learn  that  the  petals  are  for  the  pur- 
pose of  attracting  these  messengers.  You  will  learn  that  these  are 
not  messengers  for  papaya  alone,  but  for  many  hundreds  of  other 
flowers.  Nearly  all  flowering  plants  must  have  pollen  carried 
from  one  flower  to  another  before  good  fruit  and  good  seeds  are 
produced. 


THE   USES   OF    PLANTS   TO   MAN  I/ 

CHAPTER  V 

THE    USES    OF    PLANTS   TO    MAN 

THE  first  and  most  important  use  of  plants  to  man  is  for  food. 
Probably  no  country  has  more  kinds  of  plants  which  are  used  for 
food  than  the  Philippine  Islands.  Do  you  think  you  could  write  a 
list  of  all  the  plants  which  the  Filipino  people  use  for  food  ?  Al- 


Loading  sacks  of  flour  in  Oregon. 


most  any  Filipino  boy  or  girl  can  think  of  more  than  a  hundred 
kinds  of  plants  which  are  used  for  food. 

There  are  many  different  ways  in  which  the  parts  of  a  plant  are 


18  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

used  for  food.  Some  parts  must  be  cooked  before  they  are  eaten ; 
other  parts  may  be  eaten  without  cooking.  In  some  food-plants  we 
eat  only  the  seeds,  in  others  we  eat  the  entire  fruit,  and  in  a  few  we 
eat  the  leaves  as  well. 

Rice  and  wheat  and  corn,  or  maize,  are  called  cereals.  The 
cereals  form  the  most  important  group  of  food-plants  in  the  world. 
We  eat  only  the  seeds  of  cereals  and  they  need  to  be  cooked.  In 
countries  of  the  temperate  regions,  like  the  United  States,  wheat  is 
the  most  important  food-plant.  The  seeds  of  wheat  are  ground  into 
a  fine  powder  called  flour,  and  from  this  flour  bread  is  made.  Flour 
is  sometimes  made  from  corn  and  rice  in  the  same  way.  One  of 
the  reasons  why  food  which  comes  from  the  seeds  of  plants  is  espe- 
cially valuable  is  that  it  may  be  kept  for  a  long  time  without  spoil- 
ing, if  it  is  kept  dry.  Other  plant-foods  must  be  eaten  while  they 
are  fresh. 

In  the  markets  of  the  United  States  the  fresh  plant-foods  are 
called  either  "fruits"  or  " vegetables."  Sweet  plant-foods  which 
are  eaten  without  cooking  are  called  "  fruit."  The  banana,  the 
orange,  the  chico,  the  mango,  and  the  lansones  are  examples  of 
common  Philippine  "fruit."  But  in  Nature  Study  we  use  the 
word  fruit  to  describe  that  part  of  the  plant  which  contains  the 
seeds,  no  matter  whether  it  is  sweet  and  can  be  eaten  raw  or  not. 

Rice,  potatoes,  and  maize  are  common  examples  of  Philippine 
vegetables.  They  need  to  be  cooked  before  they  are  eaten.  In 
Nature  Study  should  we  call  the  potato  a  fruit  ?  Do  cucumbers 
and  tomatoes  contain  seed  ? 

Plants  are  even  more  important  to  animals  as  food  than  they 
are  to  man.  Since  animals,  especially  horses  and  cattle,  are  valu- 
able to  man,  the  plants  which  supply  food  for  these  animals  may 
often  be  sold  for  a  good  price.  In  the  United  States  one  of  the 


THE   USES    OF    PLANTS    TO    MAN  IQ 

most  valuable  crops  which  the  farmer  produces  is  the  crop  of  hay  or 
dried  grass  which  the  horses  and  cattle  eat  in  the  winter.  He  also 
grows  much  oats  and  barley  for  the  horses.  He  feeds  corn  to  his 
hogs,  and  this  is  a  reason  why  the  hogs  of  the  United  States  are 
very  much  better  than  the  hogs  of  the  Philippine  Islands. 


Irrigation  of  sugar-beets. 


Land  that  is  covered  with  grass  which  is  good  food  for 
horses  and  cattle  is  called  grazing-land.  Much  money  is  to  be 
made  by  keeping  cattle  and  horses  on  good  grazing-land  and 
driving  them  to  market  when  they  are  ready  to  be  sold.  In  the 


20  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

Philippine    Islands   there    are  many  square  miles  of   fine  grazing- 
land,  but  very  few  cattle  and  horses  are  kept  on  it. 

Food  is  the  most  important  product  of  plants,  and  the  second 
in  importance  is  timber.  Think  of  the  hundred  uses  of  timber  !  It 
is  used  in  building  houses,  ships,  wagons,  bridges,  railroads,  and 


I  ! 
The  timber  industry. 


many  other  very  important  things.  Now  we  already  know  that  no 
country  in  the  world  can  produce  better  food-plants  than  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands,  If  the  same  thing  is  true  of  timber-plants  then  the 
Islands  are  fortunate  indeed!  And  this  is  true.  Many  of  the 


THE   USES    OF    PLANTS   TO    MAN 


21 


finest  kinds  of  timber  in  the  world  are  to  be  found  here.     Millions 
of  acres  are  covered  with  fine  and  valuable  trees. 

Nearly  all  of  this  land  is  owned  by  the  Government  and  good 
care  is  taken  that  the  fine  timber  is  not  wasted,  but  that  it  is  cut 
down  only  as  fast  as  it  grows  up.  In  many  countries  where  timber 
is  valuable  the  trees  have  been  cut  down  so  rapidly  that  now  there 
is  very  little  forest  left.  It  is  just  as  necessary  not  to  be  wasteful 
in  harvesting  the  crop  of  the  forest  as  it  is  in  harvesting  the  crop  of 
the  fields. 

There  are  many  forest-crops  besides  timber  which  are  valuable. 
Rubber  and  gutta-percha  trees  are  found  in  the  forests  of  the  Philip- 
pines. Gutta- 
percha  is  nec- 
essary in  the 
manufacture 
of  submarine 
cables  and 
sells  for  a  high 
price.  Like 
rubber,  it  is 
made  from  a 
milky  juice 
which  comes 
out  of  the 
trunks  of  the 
trees  when 
they  are  cut. 
Valuable 
gums  and  resins  are  also 
Philippine  trees. 


Gathering  flax  for  linen  manufacture. 


found  in  the  trunks  of  certain  kinds  of 


A    NATURE   STUDY    READER 

There  are  two  plant-products  in  the  Islands  which  are  not  used 
for  food  or  for  timber.  They  are  the  products  for  which  the  Islands 
are  best  known.  Both  of  them  are  made  from  the  leaves  of  plants. 
These  plant-products  are  hemp  and  tobacco. 

Another  class  of  plants  which  is  very  useful  to  man  is  formed 
by  those  plants  from  whose  fibers  cloth  is  made.  The  most  im- 
portant of  this  class  of  plants  is  cotton.  The  best  cotton  is  grown 
in  the  southern  part  of  the  United  States.  Some  cotton  is  grown 
in  northern  Luzon  and  it  could  be  grown  in  many  other  parts  of 
the  Islands.  Silk  and  woolen  cloths  are  animal  products.  Do  you 
know  from  what  plants  jusi  and  pifia  are  made  ? 

A  fourth  use  of  plants  to  man  is  their  use  for  medicine. 
Nearly  all  medicines  are  made  from  plants,  and  the  science  of  plant- 
study,  or  botany,  was  begun  by  men  who  were  searching  for  plant- 
products  which  would  be  valuable  for  medicine. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  four  great  uses  of  plants  to  man 
are  for  food,  for  shelter,  for  clothing,  and  for  medicine. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    USEFUL    PLANTS    OF    THE    PHILIPPINE    ISLANDS 

No  country  in  the  world  can  produce  more  valuable  and  useful 
plants  than  the  Philippine  Islands.  In  many  other  countries,  how- 
ever, the  farmers  have  learned  much  more  about  the  cultivation  of 
plants  than  have  the  Filipino  farmers  and  so  have  made  their  crops 
more  valuable. 

This  should  not  be  so  any  longer.     The  farmers  of  the  Philip- 


THE   USEFUL   PLANTS   OF   THE   PHILIPPINE   ISLANDS  23 

pine  Islands  should  be  as  good  as  their  land.  Since  there  is  no 
finer  farming-land  than  may  be  found  here,  there  should  be  no 
better  farmers  than  the  Filipino  farmers.  This  may  be  so  in  a  few 
years  if  the  Filipino  people  learn  about  the  useful  plants  of  their 
country  and  cultivate  them  in  the  best  way. 

Which  is  the  most  useful  and  valuable  plant  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  ?     Probably  every  Filipino  boy  or  girl  would  answer  this 


+  \ 


A  rice-field. 


question  by  saying  that  rice  is  the  most  useful  plant  to  the  Filipino 
people.  Certainly  rice  is  of  more  use  to  more  people  than  any  other 
plant.  Many  of  the  valuable  plants  of  the  Islands  might  die  and 
most  of  the  people  would  not  be  the  worse  for  it,  but  when  the  rice 


24  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

dies  there  is  much  suffering  and  hunger.  The  rice-plant  should  be 
studied  carefully  to  learn  how  best  to  cultivate  it  and  make  sure  of 
a  good  crop. 

It  has  been  necessary  in  recent  years  for  the  Filipino  people  to 
buy  much  of  their  rice  from  other  countries.  Many  shiploads  have 
come  from  China.  This  should  not  be  so.  There  is  plenty  of  good 
rice-land  and  the  Filipino  people  should  produce  enough  rice  for 
themselves  and  much  to  ship  to  other  countries  besides. 

Next  to  rice,  bamboo  is  perhaps  the  most  useful  plant.  The 
first  thing  a  man  needs  is  food.  The  next  thing  is  a  house  to  give 
him  shelter.  Most  of  the  Filipino  people  live  in  houses  built  of 
bamboo  and  covered  with  a  roof  made  of  the  leaves  of  the  nipa- 
palm.  Bamboo  is  not  only  useful  in  the  building  of  houses,  but 
has  very  many  other  uses.  What  are  some  of  the  other  uses  of 
bamboo  ? 

There  are  many  important  food-plants  in  the  Islands  besides 
rice.  Corn  or  maize  and  potatoes  are  important,  although  they  grow 
better  in  other  countries.  In  some  parts  of  the  Islands  corn  is  used 
by  the  people  even  more  than  rice. 

In  no  country  are  more  kinds  of  sweet  fruits  to  be  found. 
Philippine  mangoes  are  the  best  in  the  world.  Everywhere  bananas 
grow  and  there  are  more  than  twenty  different  kinds.  How  many 
do  you  know  ?  Lansones,  chico,  atis,  and  mangostin  are  delicious 
Philippine  fruits.  Have  you  eaten  all  of  these  ?  Which  do  you 
like  best  ?  None  of  these  can  be  grown  in  the  United  States,  but  the 
oranges  of  California  and  Florida  are  much  better  than  those  which 
grow  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  This  is  because  much  care  has  been 
taken  in  the  cultivation  of  oranges  in  America.  The  Philippine 
oranges  may  be  much  improved  by  cultivation. 

The  plants  which  you  have  just  read  about  are  those  which  are 


THE   USEFUL   PLANTS   OF   THE   PHILIPPINE   ISLANDS  25 

most  important  to  the  Filipino  people  for  their  own  use.  There  are 
others,  however,  which  are  more  important  than  these  for  the  pur- 
pose of  export.  Products  which  are  sent  to  other  countries  are 
called  exports.  The  most  important  plants  whose  products  are  ex- 
ported from  the  Philippine  Islands  are  abaca,  niog  or  coconut, 
tobacco,  and  sugar-cane. 

Abaca  produces  the  famous  Manila  hemp  from  which  the  'best 
rope  in  the  world  is  made.  No  other  country  can  grow  this 
wonderful  plant  so  well  as  it  , 

grows  in  the  Philippine  Isl- 
ands. There  is  always  a 
strong  demand  in  the  markets 
of  the  world  for  Manila  hemp. 
More  of  it  could  be  produced 
without  causing  the  price  to 
decrease.  It  is  one  of  the 
crops  which  the  Filipino  farm- 
er should  cultivate  more  than 
he  does  to-day.  The  only 
danger  of  reducing  the  good 
prices  now  paid  for  Philippine 
hemp  comes  from  mixing  bad 
libers  with  good  ones.  That 
has  been  done  by  some  dis- 
honest dealers  in  hemp.  To 
do  such  a  thing  is  to  injure 
the  whole  Filipino  people,  for 
if  it  is  found  that  Philippine 
hemp  is  not  always  reliable  and  good  the  price  for  it  will  become 
much  lower. 


A  field  of  abaca. 


26 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


The  coconut  is  very  important  both  for  home  or  "domestic" 
use,  and  for  export  to  foreign  countries.  Cana  and  niog,  or  bamboo 
and  coconut,  as  we  say  in  English,  are  the  two  plants  which  have  a 
hundred  different  uses.  The  coconut-palm  is  perhaps  better  known 
to  the  people  of  temperate  regions  than  any  other  tropical  plant,  for 


Gathering  sugar-cane. 

dried  coconut  is  sold  all  over  the  world.      What  are  four  different 
and  valuable  plant-products  which  come  from  the  coconut  ? 

Much  fine  tobacco  is  grown  in  the  islands  of  the  West  Indies, 
especially  in  Cuba.  This  is  a  crop  which  can  also  be  grown  in  the 
United  States,  but  not  so  well  as  in  the  tropics.  The  islands  of 


THE   BANANA  2? 

Cuba,  Sumatra,  and  Luzon  are  the  best  tobacco-producing  countries 
in  the  world.  In  Cuba  and  Sumatra  more  study  and  care  has  been 
given  to  the  cultivation  of  tobacco  than  in  the  Philippines,  but  there 
is  no  reason  why  Luzon  should  not  produce  as  fine  tobacco  as  any 
in  the  world  if  it  is  carefully  cultivated. 

The  islands  of  the  Visayan  group  have  fine  land  for  the  grow- 
ing of  sugar-cane.  This  is  another  of  the  Philippine  crops  which 
may  be  much  improved  by  the  use  of  better  methods. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  plants  which  make  up  the 
wonderful  abundance  of  plant-wealth  with  which  the  Philippine 
Islands  are  blessed.  We  must  remember  the  rich  forest-crops  which 
grow  wild.  We  must  remember  the  cacao,  the  coffee,  the  cotton, 
the  pina,  and  the  ilang-ilang  which  will  all  bring  wealth  to  the 
farmer  who  cultivates  them  carefully. 

So  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  Filipino  boys  and  girls  should 
learn  all  they  can  about  the  plants  of  their  beautiful  Islands.  The 
wealth  of  the  people  will  always  come  from  the  products  of  the 
plants,  and  the  value  of  these  products  is  increased  many  times 
when  we  understand  how  the  plants  grow  and  cultivate  them  in  the 
best  way. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    BANANA 


IT  would  be  hard  to  find  Filipino  boys  and  girls  who  could  not 
tell  the  name  of  a  banana  as  soon  as  they  saw  its  big  leaves.  Ba- 
nanas grow  everywhere  in  the  tropics,  and  the  fruit  is  sent  to  all  parts 
of  the  temperate  regions.  Although  children  who  live  where  there 


28 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


is  ice  and  snow  in  winter  may  have  many  bananas  to  eat,  they  prob- 
ably would  not  know  a  banana-plant  when  they  saw  it  unless  the 


Banana-plants  growing  in  a  conservatory  with  other  tropical  plants. 


THE   BANANA  29 

ripe  fruit  was  hanging  from  it.  No  plants  which  grow  in  the  tem- 
perate regions  have  such  huge  leaves  as  the  banana-plant.  In  the 
United  States  bananas  are  sometimes  grown  in  glass  houses  where 
the  air  is  kept  warm  all  the  time.  These  glass  houses  are  called 
conservatories.  They  are  built  of  glass  so  that  there  may  be  plenty 
of  light.  Why  is  it  necessary  for  plants  to  have  plenty  of  light  ? 

The  bananas  which  are  sent  from  warm  countries  to  be  eaten  in 
cold  countries  are  picked  while  they  are  still  green.  If  they  were 
picked  when  they  are  ripe  they  would  decay  long  before  reaching 
their  destination.  The  green  bananas  ripen  slowly  in  Am'erica  if 
they  are  kept  in  a  warm  place.  You  very  often  see  men  with  little 
carts  going  about  in  the  cities  of  America  selling  bananas  which  have 
come  a  thousand  miles  from  the  south.  Some  ships  come  to  the 
United  States  loaded  with  nothing  but  bananas.  Thousands  of 
bunches  are  sent  in  trains  to  all  parts  of  the  country.  Those  sent 
from  Central  America  to  the  United  States  are  larger  than  Philippine 
bananas,  but  they  do  not  have  so  pleasant  a  taste  as  when  they  are 
allowed  to  become  nearly  ripe  on  the  trees. 

There  are  more  different  kinds  of  bananas  in  the  Philippines 
than  are  ever  seen  in  America.  Can  you  tell  your  teacher  the  names 
of  ten  different  kinds  ?  Which  kind  do  you  think  is  best  to  eat  ? 
Here  is  a  picture  of  the  butuhan.  The  butuhan  is  not  good  for  eat- 
ing but  is  the  most  common  kind.  Why  is  it  not  good  for  eating? 
Many  people  are  very  fond  of  the  lacatan.  Is  lacatan  cultivated  or 
wild?  Does  the  butuhan  grow  wild  ?  We  may  call  the  butuhan 
the  most  successful  kind  because  it  is  the  most  common. 

How  many  different  parts  are  there  in  a  banana-plant  ?  In  the 
picture  you  can  see  the  stem  and  the  big  leaves  and  the  flower-part 
and  some  of  the  fruit.  What  is  the  part  which  you  can  not  see  in 
the  picture  ? 


30  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

The  leaf  is  so  very  large  that  you  can  easily  see  its  different 
parts.  In  the  center  is  a  strong,  stiff  part  called  the  midrib.  It  is 
like  a  strong  bone  in  the  body  of  the  leaf  and  holds  it  up  so  that  it 
can  do  its  work.  From  the  midrib,  other  ribs  run  out  to  the  edge 
of  the  leaf.  These  smaller  ribs  are  called  the  veins  of  the  leaf.  In 
the  leaf  of  banana  the  veins  all  have  the  same  direction.  They  run 
straight  from  the  center  to  the  edge  of  the  leaf.  Did  you  notice  the 
veins  of  the  leaf  of  papaya  ?  Are  they  all  in  the  same  direction  ? 

Since  the  veins  of  a  banana-leaf  all  run  the  same  way  it  is  easy 
to  tear  the  leaf  that  way,  but  very  difficult  to  tear  it  the  other  way, 
across  the  veins.  Nearly  all  the  old  leaves  of  banana  are  torn  into 
strips  by  the  wind.  It  does  not  kill  the  banana-leaves  to  be  torn  in 
this  way.  They  seem  to  do  their  work  just  as  well  as  before,  but  if 
you  cut  a  banana-leaf  across  the  veins,  it  will  soon  die.  This  is  be- 
cause the  veins,  besides  giving  strength  to  the  leaf,  are  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  to  its  different  parts  the  materials  necessary  for  its  work. 
What  other  part  of  the  plant  receives  the  materials  which  are  neces- 
sary for  the  work  of  the  leaf  ?  The  veins  also  carry  back  into  the 
stem  of  the  plant  the  food  which  is  manufactured  in  the  leaves. 

The  banana,  like  the  papaya,  grows  up  very  rapidly.  It  does 
not  grow  up  from  seeds,  but  has  an  underground  part  of  the  stem 
which  sends  up  side-shoots  or  suckers.  These  suckers  may  be  cut 
away  and  planted  in  other  places.  When  the  big  leaves  of  the  sucker 
begin  to  unfold  they  grow  very  fast.  Sometimes  a  leaf  grows  sev- 
eral inches  in  one  day.  First  there  is  a  long,  green  roll,  formed  of 
two  leaves.  When  these  unroll  other  leaves  appear,  and  thus  the 
beautiful,  spreading  crown  is  formed.  The  stem  is  formed  of  the 
leaf-stalks  or  petioles  which  are  rolled  one  over  the  other. 

Do  you  know  how  long  it  takes  a  banana-plant  to  grow  up  from 
the  sucker  and  produce  fruit  ?  Most  of  the  bananas  which  are  eaten 


Lacatan. 


32  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

in  America  come  from  the  West  Indies.  There  the  first  crop  of  fruit 
is  ready  in  less  than  a  year  from  the  time  of  planting.  Do  the  bana- 
nas grow  so  quickly  as  that  in  the  Philippines  ? 

The  fruits  and  not  the  leaves  of  the  banana  are  valuable,  yet  we 
know  that  if  we  cut  off  the  leaves  or  let  horses  eat  them  there  will 
be  no  fruit.  The  Filipino  horses  seem  to  be  very  fond  of  young 
banana-leaves.  There  is  another  plant  which  is  much  like  the  ba- 
nana, whose  fruit  is  not  valuable  but  whose  leaves  are.  Have  you 
seen  this  plant?  It  is  the  abaca.  The  abaca  belongs  to  the  same 
family  of  plants  as  the  banana.  It  may  be  called  the  cousin  of  the 
banana. 

Since  the  banana  and  the  abac£  have  such  large,  spreading 
leaves  they  are  useful  not  only  for  their  own  sake,  but  also  to  shelter 
other  useful  plants  which  need  a  good  deal  of  shade  when  they  are 
young.  It  is  common  to  use  bananas  to  shade  young  cacao-plants, 
and  abaca  may  be  well  used  for  the  same  purpose. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MORE    ABOUT    THE    BANANA 

HAVE  you  ever  watched  a  young  banana-plant  grow  up  from  the 
bottom  of  an  old  one  ?  It  is  hard  to  find  an  old  banana-plant  with- 
out young  ones  growing  up  around  it,  unless  the  baby  banana-plants 
have  been  cut  down  or  eaten  by  the  goats  or  horses.  These  young 
banana-plants  or  suckers  soon  become  too  crowded  together  if  they 
are  all  allowed  to  grow.  It  is  best  to  cut  away  all  but  three  or  four. 
The  suckers  which  are  cut  away  may  be  planted  in  other  places. 


MORE   ABOUT   THE   BANANA 


33 


Since  the  large  leaves  need  plenty  of  room,  the  suckers  should  be 
planted  about  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  apart. 

The  banana  is  one  of  the  easiest  plants  to  cultivate  and  one  of 
the  most  productive.     The  best  bananas  are  grown  where  the  soil  is 


A  banana-plantation. 

deep  and  has  plenty  of  the  decayed  parts  of  plants  in  it.  The  de- 
cayed parts  of  plants  supply  rich  food-material  for  the  roots  of  living 
plants.  Do  you  know  about  how  long  one  banana-plant  can  live  ? 
Do  you  know  how  many  bunches  of  bananas  one  plant  can  produce  ? 


Butuhan. 


MORE   ABOUT   THE   BANANA  35 

You  know  that  papaya-plants  grow  up  from  seeds  and  that 
banana-plants  grow  up  from  suckers.  Do  you  know  whether 
banana-plants  ever  produce  good  seeds  ?  Can  you  see  the  seeds 
in  the  fruit  of  lacatan  ?  You  can  see  them  easily  in  the  fruit  of 
butuhan,  but  do  you  think  that  these  seeds  are  able  to  produce  new 
plants?  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  if  the  seeds  of  banana  were 
good  for  producing  new  plants  the  fruit  would  not  be  so  good  to 
eat.  The  seeds  of  lacatan  are  so  small  and  weak  that  we  eat  them 
without  noticing  them. 

Is  it  better  for  a  plant  to  produce  its  young  by  means  of  seeds  or 
by  means  of  suckers  ?  This  is  a  rather  difficult  question  to  answer, 
but  we  can  certainly  see  that  the  seed-method  is  better  in  some 
ways  than  the  sucker-method.  Seeds  are  often  carried  by  the  birds 
or  by  the  wind  far  away  from  the  parent-plant  and  grow  up  \vhere 
there  is  plenty  of  room.  Unless  men  transplant  them,  the  suckers 
must  grow  up  very  near  the  old  plants,  and  many  of  them  die  from 
being  crowded  too  closely  together.  When  plants  are  crowded  too 
closely  together  there  is  not  enough  food-material  for  all  the  roots 
and  not  enough  light  for  all  the  leaves. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  flower-part  of  the  banana.  The  flowers 
of  bananas  are  all  a  good  deal  alike,  but  perhaps  you  will  find  those 
of  butuhan  the  easiest  to  get.  In  the  center  of  the  plant  we  find  a 
large  red  part  which  has  something  of  the  shape  of  a  heart.  Is  this 
part  a  single  flower  or  is  it  composed  of  many  flowers  ?  We  shall 
have  to  open  it  to  be  sure.  On  the  outside  we  find  dark-red  leaves. 
Beneath  each  of  these  stiff  leaves  a  row  of  yellow  or  white  flowers 
is  to  be  found.  So  we  may  be  sure  that  the  large,  red  part  is  not  a 
single  flower,  but  is  composed  of  many  flowers  separated  by  the  red 
leaves.  Such  a  group  of  flowers  is  called  an  inflorescence,  and  the 
red  leaves  are  called  bracts.  The  pink  flowers  of  cadena  d'amor 


36  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

and  the  man-flowers  of  papaya  are  also  arranged  in  inflorescences, 
though  not  so  close  together  as  the  flowers  of  banana.  The  flowers 
of  the  palm-trees  are  also  arranged  in  inflorescences.  Have  you 
ever  eaten  a  young  inflorescence  of  banana  ?  It  is 
good  to  eat  when  cooked. 

Under  the  first  red  bract  we  find  flowers  which  are 
about  two  inches  long.  The  flowers  under  the  next 
bracts  are  a  little  shorter,  and  if  you  pull  off  the  bracts 
one  at  a  time  you  can  at  last  find  flowers  which  are 
less  than  one  inch  long.  You  can  see  very  plainly  how 
the  lower  part  of  the  flower  slowly  changes  into  the 
fruit.  You  learned  from  papaya  that 
this  part  of  the  flower  is  called  the 
ovary.  You  should  make  six  or  seven 
pencil-pictures  of  banana-flowers,  begin- 

The    flower    of      *  l  .  .       . 

butuhan.        ning  with   the   youngest   and   finishing 

with  the  fruit  itself. 

You  will  notice  many  differences  between  the 
flowers  of  banana  and  those  of  papaya.  In  the  first 
place,  the  banana  has  only  one  kind  of  flower  while 
the  papaya  has  two.  For  this  reason  all  the  flower- 
parts  of  banana  must  be  in  the  same  flower.  The 
corolla  of  papaya  has  a  regular  shape,  like  a  wheel. 
The  corolla  of  banana  is  irregular.  Then  in  the 
woman-flower  of  papaya  the  petals  are  fastened  be- 
low the  ovary.  In  banana  the  petals  are  fastened 
above  the  ovary.  The  petals  of  banana  are  not 
separate  like  those  of  woman-papaya.  They  are 
united  in  a  long  tube,  which  spreads  open  when  the  flower  is  ripe. 
At  the  top  of  the  corolla  you  may  see  five  large  stamens.  Inside 


The  flower  of  bu- 
tuhan, with  pet- 
als removed. 

The    fruit     is    formed 
from  the  lower  part. 


MORE   ABOUT   THE   BANANA 


37 


of  these  stamens  you  find  a  swollen  part,  like  the  knob  on  the  end 
of  a  cane.  This  is  the  stigma.  You  remember  that  the  stigma  of 
papaya  is  divided  into  branches  and  is  closely  fastened  to  the  top  of 
the  ovary.  Since  the  ovary  of  banana  is  below  the  petals  there  is  a 


Loading  a  ship  with  banan 


long,  slender  part  to  connect  the  stigma  with  the  ovary.  You  can 
see  this  part  when  you  cut  the  flower  open.  It  is  called  the  style. 
Nearly  all  flowers  have  styles,  so  that  we  say  the  pistil  is  composed 
of  ovary,  style,  and  stigma. 


3§  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

Now  that  the  flower  is  cut  open  you  can  see  the  stamens  very 
plainly.  How  many  are  there  ?  Are  they  fastened  to  the  corolla 
or  to  the  bottom  of  the  flower  ?  Can  you  find  any  pollen  ? 

There  is  still  another  very  important  difference  between  the 
flowers  of  banana  and  the  flowers  of  papaya.  You  learned  that 
the  pollen  of  papaya  is  carried  from  the  stamens  of  one  flower  to 
the  stigma  of  another.  You  learned  that  this  transfer  of  pollen 
occurs  in  most  flowers  even  though  stamens  and  stigma  are  to  be 
found  in  the  same  flower.  You  learned  that  this  is  necessary  in 
order  to  make  good  seed.  Now  in  banana  the  pollen  is  not  trans- 
ferred from  one  flower  to  another.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
the  banana  does  not  have  good  seed  and  must  produce  its  young  by 
means  of  suckers.  When  you  open  the  banana-flower  you  can  see 
that  the  stigma  is  covered  with  pollen  from  the  stamens  of  the  same 
flower.  The  pollen-bearing  parts  of  the  stamens,  which  are  called 
"anthers,"  grow  very  close  to  the  end  of  the  pistil,  so  that  the  pol- 
len is  sure  to  reach  it. 


CHAPTER    IX 

TANDAN  ;    A    SHORE-LOVER 

THE  pandan  is  a  peculiar  plant,  common  along  the  shores  of  all 
tropical  countries.  You  can  find  it  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands.  The  only  important  use  of  pandan  to  the  Filipino 
people  is  the  use  of  the  leaves  for  making  mats.  Can  you  explain 
how  this  is  done  ? 

You  may  know  pandan  by  its  strange  roots.  These  roots  are 
as  much  in  the  air  as  they  are  in  the  ground.  Because  they  seem  to 


PANDAN;   A   SHORE-LOVER 


39 


prop  the  plant  up,  they  are  called  prop-roots.  You  can  often  find 
roots  of  pandan  which  have  begun  to  grow  down  from  the  stem, 
but  which  have  not  yet  reached  the  ground.  At  the  end  of  these 
roots  the  "  root- 
cap  "  is  always 
to  be  found.  If 
you  pull  off  this 
cap  the  tender, 
growing  end  is 
found  beneath. 
The  root-cap  is 
always  found  at 
the  end  of  grow- 
ing roots,  but  in 
very  few  plants 
is  it  so  easy  to 
examine  as  in 
pandan.  Usual- 
ly it  is  deep  un- 
der the  ground 
and  comes  off 
when  we  pull 
the  plant  up. 
The  root-cap  is 
very  necessary 
when  the  root 
is  growing  in 
the  soil,  pushing 

its  way  deeper  and  deeper.     Without  it,  the  tender  tip  would  soon 
be  bruised  and  injured.     Of  course  the  cap  is  not  so  useful  while 


A  small  pandan,  showing  the  prop-roots. 


40  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

the  end  of  the  root  is  in  the  air,  yet  its  presence  proves  that  the  part 
we  are  examining  is  not  a  branch  of  the  stem.  It  is  a  true  root, 
trying  to  reach  the  soil.  Protecting  caps  are  not  so  necessary  for 
the  growing  ends  of  stems  and  branches.  Of  course  it  is  much 
easier  to  grow  in  the  air  than  in  the  ground.  Besides,  the  tender 
tips  of  stems  and  branches  are  protected  by  the  young  leaves  which 
curve  over  the  end.  Roots  never  have  leaves. 

The  leaves  of  pandan  are  also  peculiar.  They  are  hard  and 
tough  and  have  stiff  points  along  the  edges.  It  is  hard  to  pull  them 
without  scratching  the  hands.  They  are  long  and  narrow,  and, 
when  young,  they  point  straight  upward.  When  they  are  older  they 
bend  in  the  middle  and  the  outer  end  droops  toward  the  ground. 

Now  we  know  that  every  part  of  a  plant  is  usually  for  some  pur- 
pose. Do  you  think  we  can  tell  the  purpose  of  the  prop-roots  and  the 
hard,  stiff  leaves  of  pandan  with  their  peculiar  shape  and  position  ? 
Why  are  they  so  different  from  the  roots  and  leaves  of  nearly  all 
other  plants  ? 

If  we  are  to  understand  the  purposes  of  the  parts  of  a  plant  we 
must  always  think  of  the  place  where  it  lives.  We  can  understand 
the  peculiar  parts  of  pandan  better  if  we  remember  that  it  lives  most 
commonly  along  the  shores.  It  may  be  called  a  "shore-lover." 

Now  you  know  that  along  the  shores  of  the  Philippine  Islands 
many  plants  are  killed  every  year  by  the  salt  water  which  is  blown  in 
from  the  ocean  by  the  typhoons.  Along  the  Luneta,  which  borders 
the  shore  of  Manila  Bay  at  Manila,  no  plants  can  be  grown  except 
those  which  have  hard,  tough  leaves  which  will  not  be  killed  by  the 
driven  spray.  Salt  water  is  much  worse  for  plants  than  the  fresh 
water  which  strikes  them  as  rain,  however  hard  the  rain  may  be 
driven  by  the  wind.  The  salt  kills  tender  leaves.  So  if  a  plant  is 
a  shore-lover  it  must  have  hard,  tough  leaves  like  those  of  pandan. 


PANDAN;   A   SHORE-LOVER  41 

The  shape  and  position  of  the  leaves,  as  well  as  their  toughness, 
help  pandan  in  its  life  on  the  shores.  They  are  long  and  narrow 
and  may  be  whipped  in  the  wind  without  being  torn.  Their  veins 
run  in  the  same  direction.  Their  sharp  points  or  spines  keep  them 
from  being  eaten  by  animals. 

Along  the  shore  there  is  very  little  shade.  Shore -lovers  have 
the  heat  and  light  of  the  sun  on  them  all  day  long.  You  know  that 
green  plants  must  have  light,  yet  they  may  get  too  much,  both 
of  light  and  heat,  unless  their  leaves  are  somewhat  like  the  leaves 
of  pandan.  The  leaves,  of  pandan  point  either  toward  the  sun  or 
toward  the  ground.  So  in  midday,  when  the  sun  is  brightest  and 
the  heat  is  greatest,  they  do  not  get  so  much  light  and  heat  as  if 
their  broad  sides  were  toward  the  sun.  The  rays  of  the  sun  at  mid- 
day do  not  shine  straight  upon  them,  but  at  an  angle.  This  is  an- 
other thing  which  helps  pandan  to  live  where  other  plants  would 
quickly  die. 

Now  can  we  explain  the  strange  roots  of  pandan  ?  Does  it 
have  roots  which  are  half  in  the  ground  and  half  in  the  air  because  it 
is  a  shore-lover?  This  is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer.  We  think 
that  the  prop-roots  of  pandan  may  be  due  to  the  tides,  yet  of  course 
pandan  often  lives  and  has  prop-roots  where  the  tides  never  reach 
them.  Do  you  know  what  tides  are  ?  Do  you  know  what  tide- 
marks  are  ? 

For  boys  and  girls  who  live  along  the  shores  these  are  very  easy 
questions.  They  know  that  the  water  goes  out  at  some  times  and 
comes  back  at  other  times.  These  changes  of  water  are  called  the 
tides.  When  the  water  comes  up  high  on  the  land  it  is  called  high- 
tide.  When  it  goes  out  it  is  called  low-tide.  There  is  a  low-tide 
mark  and  a  high-tide  mark.  As  you  walk  along  the  shore  it  is  very 
easy  to  see  the  high-tide  mark.  It  is  shown  by  the  mud  which  is  left 


Pandan. 


PANDAN;   A    WIND-LOVER  43 

by  the  water  when  the  tide  goes  out.  Now  it  is  very  common  for 
the  pandan  to  grow  between  the  tide-marks.  When  it  is  low-tide 
the  prop-roots  are  exposed  to  the  air,  but  when  it  is  high-tide  they 
are  covered  with  water  and  can  do  the  natural  work  of  roots.  So 
this  arrangement  of  the  roots  seems  to  help  the  pandan  live  between 
the  tide-marks. 

There  is  one  other  very  important  reason  why  the  pandan  is  a 
shore-lover.  It  is  because  its  peculiar  fruits  are  scattered  by  the 
waters  of  the  sea.  They  float  in  the  salt  water  and  may  be  carried 
great  distances  without  being  injured.  At  last  they  are  washed 
high  up  on  the  shore  by  the  waves  in  some  storm,  and  there  they 
soon  form  young  pandan-plants.  As  you  walk  along  the  shores  it 
is  very  common  to  find  pieces  of  pandan-fruit  washed  up  by  the 
waves,  perhaps  half  buried  in  the"  sand.  It  is  a  compound  fruit. 
That  is,  the  fruit  is  not  formed  from  a  single  flower,  but  is  formed 
from  the  whole  inflorescence  of  female  flowers.  Each  of  the  small 
parts  of  the  fruit  of  pandan  contains  a  seed.  It  does  not  injure 
them  to  be  buried  in  the  sand.  It  is  a  sort  of  natural  planting. 


CHAPTER   X 

PANDAN  ;     A    WIND-LOVER 

THE  fruit  of  pandan  is  not  to  be  found  at  all  times  of  the 
year,  like  the  fruit  of  papaya  or  banana.  You  may  have  some 
trouble  in  finding  it,  but,  when  you  do,  you  will  see  that  it  looks  a 
good  deal  like  the  fruit  of  pifia.  The  leaves  of  pandan  and  pina 
also  look  much  alike.  In  America  the  fruit  of  pina  is  called  pine- 


44 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


apple,  but  in  England  and  the  English  colonies  it  is  usually  called 
pine.  For  this  reason  the  pandan  has  been  called  by  the  English 
"  screw-pine,"  although  pandan  and  pina  are  not  closely  related 
like  banana  and  abaca.  There  is  another  group  of  plants,  very  dif- 
ferent from  both  the  pandan  and  pina,  which  are  also  called  pines. 
These  pines  are  tall  trees  which  are  common  in  temperate  regions, 
but  rare  in  the  tropics,  except  in  the  mountains.  In  the  Philippine 

Islands  they  are  to  be  found  in  the  mountains 
of  Benguet  and  Zam bales  provinces.  The 
leaves  of  pine-trees  are  hard  and  are  shaped 
like  needles.  They  remain  on  the  tree  all 
winter  long,  no  matter  how  much  snow  and 
ice  there  may  be.  Pine-trees  furnish  one  of 
the  most  useful  kinds  of  timber  in  the  world. 
Although  the  pandan  or  screw-pine  and 
the  true  pines  are  very  different  plants  in 
nearly  every  way,  in  one  important  thing  they 

are  alike.  They  both 
use  the  wind  for  the 
transfer  of  the  pollen 
from  one  flower  to  an- 
other. For  this  reason 
they  are  both  called 
wind-lovers.  Like  pa- 
paya, pandan  has  two 
kinds  of  flowers.  The 
male  flowers  produce 

pollen  ;  the  female  flowers  produce  fruit.  Yet  the  flowers  of  pan- 
dan  do  not  look  at  all  like  those  of  papaya.  They  do  not  have 
bright-colored  petals  or  pleasant  odors.  Indeed,  you  might  think 


Flowers  of  the  man-pandan.       Stamens  from  man-pandan. 


PANDAN;   A   WIND-LOVER  45 

at  first  that  they  are  not  flowers  at  all,  but  since  they  produce 
either  pollen  or  fruit  we  know  that  they  must  be  flowers,  however 
strange  their  appearance  may  be.  They  are  arranged  in  close 
inflorescences,  like  the  flowers  of  banana.  The  male  flowers  are 
composed  of  nothing  but  the  many  small,  white  stamens.  The 
female  flowers  are  composed  of  nothing  but  the  pistils.  They  may 
be  called  naked  flowers. 

Now  it  is  time  for  you  to  understand  why  most  flowers  are 
not  naked,  but  are  clothed  with  bright  corollas  and  have  pleasant 
odors.  You  can  understand  the  purpose  of  these  parts  best  by  com- 
paring them  with  flowers  like  those  of  pandan  which  do  not  have 
these  parts. 

You  learned  from  papaya  that  the  pollen  must  be  transferred 
from  the  stamens  of  one  flower  to  the  stigma  of  another,  or  else 
good  seeds  and  fruit  will  not  be  produced.  You  learned  that  the 
pollen  of  banana  is  not  transferred  from  one  flower  to  another,  and 
bananas  do  not  produce  good  seed.  Now  if  you  watch  bright-col- 
ored flowers  on  sunny  days  you  will  see  that  they  are  often  visited 
by  bees  and  butterflies  and  other  insects.  These  insects  fly  from 
flower  to  flower  seeking  the  sweet  honey  or  nectar  which  is  to  be 
found  in  the  corollas.  You  might  think  that  the  insects  are  ene- 
mies of  the  flowers,  since  they  rob  them  of  their  sweet  nectar,  but 
the  truth  is  that  they  are  among  the  best  friends  which  the  flower 
has.  The  flowers  are  very  glad  of  their  visits.  The  bright  colors 
and  pleasant  odors  are  for  the  very  purpose  of  attracting  these  in- 
sects so  that  they  will  come  to  the  flowers.  The  sweet  nectar  is  a 
food  of  which  they  are  very  fond.  The  flowers  are  glad  to  give  it 
to  them  in  payment  for  their  visits. 

Why  ?  Because  these  insects  are  the  special  messengers  which 
carry  the  pollen  from  one  flower  to  another.  Because,  while  the 


46 


Butterflies    visiting    flowers    to 
carry  away  pollen  and  nectar. 


A   NATURE   STUDY    READER 

insects  are  getting  the  nectar,  some  of  the 
pollen  is  sure  to  stick  to  their  bodies,  and 
when  they  go  to  the  next  flower  it  is 
rubbed  off  on  the  rough  or  sticky  surface 
of  the  stigma.  Now  you  can  understand 
why  many  flowers  are  clothed  with  bright 
corollas  and  have  pleasant  odors.  Such 
flowers  may  be  called  insect-lovers.  Now, 
too,  you  can  understand  why  the  flowers 
of  wind-lovers,  like  pandan,  are  naked. 
Bright  colors  and  pleasant  odors  would 
not  attract  the  wind.  The  wind  goes  to 
all  parts  of  the  plant  alike.  Many  kinds 
of  trees  in  the  Philippine  forests,  whose 
flowers  are  borne  high  up  where  the  wind 
is  sure  to  strike  them,  are  wind-lovers. 

Is  it  better  for  a  plant  to  be  a  wind- 
lover  or  an  insect-lover  ?  We  may  see 
that  each  way  has  some  advantages  over 
the  other.  If  a  plant  is  a  wind-lover  it 
does  not  have  to  make  bright-colored 
petals  to  attract  the  insects,  or  sweet  nectar 
for  them  to  eat.  When  a  plant  has  these 
things  it  means  that  the  stems  and  roots 
and  leaves  have  had  a  great  deal  of  work 
to  do  in  making  them.  A  plant  which  is 
a  wind-lover  saves  all  this  work.  You 
must  remember  that  flowers  and  fruit  are 
produced  by  the  work  of  the  roots  and 
leaves,  and  those  plants  are  most  success- 


THE    GUMAMELA  47 

ful  which  produce  good  fruit  and  many  seeds  with  the  least  amount 
of  work.  So  you  may  think  it  is  better  for  a  plant  to  be  a  wind- 
lover  than  an  insect-lover,  since  much  work  is  saved  by  this  method. 
Yet  we  must  remember  that  the  wind  is  not  so  safe  a  messenger  as 
the  insects.  It  will  not  blow  the  pollen  straight  from  the  anthers 
to  the  stigmas.  For  every  grain  of  pollen  which  safely  reaches  the 
stigma  perhaps  thousands  of  others  are  blown  to  other  places.  For 
this  reason  wind-lovers  must  produce  very  much  more  pollen  than 
insect-lovers.  For  this  reason  you  find  in  the  inflorescences  of  the 
male  flowers  of  pandan  very  great  quantities  of  pollen.  The  inflor- 
escences are  composed  of  thousands  of  stamens  crowded  close 
together.  When  they  are  ripe  you  may  shake  showers  of  pollen 
from  them.  Perhaps  it  is  almost  as  hard  a  task  for  the  plant  to 
make  so  much  pollen  as  it  is  to  make  bright  corollas  and  sweet 
nectar  and  only  a  little  pollen.  So  you  see  that  each  way  has  some 
advantage  over  the  other  and  both  are  good. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE     GUMAMELA 

THE  gumamela  is  a  shrub.  All  plants  may  be  divided  into 
trees,  shrubs,  and  herbs.  The  herbs  are  the  low,  weak  plants  which 
do  not  grow  much  higher  than  your  waist.  Shrubs  or  bushes  are 
plants  with  woody  stems  which  branch  a  good  deal,  but  do  not 
grow  as  high  as  trees.  The  gumamela  is  a  perfect  example  of  a  shrub. 

Gumamela  is  perhaps  the  commonest  garden-flower  in  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands.  It  is  not  cultivated  for  its  use,  but  for  its  beauty. 


48 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


Its  large,  red  flowers  can  be  seen  for  half  a  mile.     Do  you  know  any 
other  flowers  which  can  be  seen  from  so  far  away  ? 

The  gumamela  can  be  grown  in  temperate  countries,  but  its 
flowers  are  never  so  large  and  beautiful  as  they  are  in  the  tropics. 
In  the  United  States  this  flower  is  called  hibiscus.  Does  the  guma- 
mela bear  flowers  all  year  long?  Does  it  produce  good  fruit  and  seed? 
If  you  gather  a  gumamela-flower  and  look  at  it  carefully  you 
can  very  easily  see  all  the  different  parts.  Since  the  flower  is 

clothed  with  bright  and  beautiful 
petals  you  may  be  sure  that  it  is 
visited  by  insects.  What  insects 
have  you  ever  seen  visiting  the 
gumamela  ?  The  first  thing  that 
we  notice  in  the  flower  is  the 
corolla.  It  is  composed  of  five, 
very  large,  red  petals.  Are  these 
petals  united  like  the  petals  of 
a  banana  or  are  they  separate  ? 
The  banana-flower  may  be  called 
a  closed  flower,  because  its  petals 
are  closely  united  into  a  tube 
which  hides  the  stamens  and  the 
pistil.  But  the  gumamela  has 
an  open  flower,  and  we  can  see 
the  central  parts  even  more 
plainly  than  we  did  in  the  pa- 
Pa7a-  Outside  and  under  the 
red  corolla  may  be  found  the 

small,  green  part  called  the  calyx.     The  calyx  is  composed  of  five 
united  sepals.     Outside  the  calyx  are  several  small,  pointed,  green 


THE   GUMAMELA 


49 

They  are  called 


leaves  which  are  not  a  proper  part  of  the  flower, 
bracts. 

Now  if  we  look  at  the  center  of  the  flower,  one,  long,  slender, 
red  part  is  seen.  At  the  top  it  is  divided  into  five  branches,  each 
with  a  dark-red,  little  knob  at  the  end.  These  little  knobs  are 
the  stigmas  of  gumamela.  You  know  already  that  the  stigma  is 
for  the  purpose  of  receiving  pollen.  Below  the  five  short  branches 
which  carry  the  stigmas  many  stamens  are  seen.  Each  of  these 
stamens  has  a  very  slender,  little  stem  which  branches  out  from  the 
main  stalk.  About  how  many  stamens  do  you  find  in  one  flower  ? 

When  the  flower  is  ripe  the  top  part  of  each  little  red  stamen 
opens  and  you  may  see  the  bright  yellow  pollen-grains.  Since  the 
pollen-grains  of  gumamela  are  much 
larger  than  those  of  other  plants,  you 
can  see  each  one  with  the  naked  eye 
if  you  look  very  closely.  Each  sta- 
men produces  about  fifty  or  sixty 
grains  of  pollen. 

Now  you  have  found  the  stamens 
and  the  top  part  of  the  pistil,  but 
where  is  that  very  important  part  of 
the  flower  that  bears  the  young  seeds, 
and  after  a  while  forms  the  fruit  ? 
You  know  that  the  right  place  to 
look  for  this  part  is  at  the  bottom  of 

the  pistil.  You  found  it  there  in  the  female  flower  of  the  papaya 
and  in  the  banana-flower.  You  know  that  the  name  of  this  part  is 
the  ovary.  But  you  can  not  see  the  ovary  of  the  gumamela  until 
you  cut  the  flower  open.  If  you  first  pull  off  the  petals,  and  then 
carefully  cut  open  the  bottom  of  the  flower,  you  can  find  the  ovary. 


One  half  of  the  flower  of  gumamela. 


50  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

It  is  covered  by  the  bottom  of  the  long,  slender,  red  part  which 
bears  the  stamens  and  the  stigma-branches.  This  part  is  called  the 
"column." 

If  you  split  open  the  column  you  will  find  a  long  white  thread 
inside  of  it.  This  thread  connects  the  stigmas  with  the  ovary.  It 
is  called  the  style.  You  learned  about  the  style  in  studying  the 
flowers  of  the  butuhan,  but  the  style  of  gumamela  is  very  different 
from  that  of  butuhan  because  it  is  covered  by  the  column.  This 
column  is  really  composed  of  the  lower  parts  of  the  stamens  which 
are  closely  united  together.  You  can  understand  these  things  much 
better  by  looking  very  carefully  at  the  picture  of  the  gumamela 
flower  cut  open. 

Of  course  there  are  very  many  flowers  which  do  not  have  a 
"  column "  formed  by  the  union  of  stamens  and  pistil.  In  most 
flowers  these  parts  are  separate.  Yet  there  is  a  great  fam- 
ily of  plants  called  "column-bearers"  because  they  have  the 

stamens  and  pistil  united.  These  plants 
are  common  in  the  Philippines.  Malvas 
and  calut-calutan  are  common  examples. 
The  gumamela  d'arania  is  another  mem- 
ber of  this  family  which  is  common  in 
the  Philippine  gardens.  In  English  this 

Leaf  of  gumamela  from  near  the       fl°Wer     WOuld     be     Called     the     "  drooping 
bottom  of  a  branch.  hibisCUS."        ItS     flowers     do     not     Seem     tO 

have  the  strength  to  hold  themselves  erect 

like  the  flowers  of  the  large  gumamela.  The  long,  very  slender 
column  hangs  straight  down.  The  petals  are  much  divided,  so  that 
they  seem  to  form  a  sort  of  fringe.  Are  the  leaves  of  the  guma- 
mela d'arania  different  from  those  of  the  large-flowered  gumamela  ? 
You  will  have  to  look  very  carefully  to  make  sure  of  this,  for  on 


THE   GUMAMELA  51 

the  gumamela  it  is  common  to  find  two  kinds  of  leaves.  The  leaves 
at  the  bottom  of  the  plant  are  often  very  different  in  shape  from 
those  at  the  top. 

Neither  kind  of  gumamela  produces  good  fruit  and  seed.     If 
you  want  to  plant  gumamela  in  the  garden  how  do  you  do  it  ?     If 
the  gumamela  does  not  produce  good  seed  you 
may  wonder  what  the   flowers  are  for.      You 
have  already  learned  that  all  parts  of  a  plant 
have  some  purpose  and  that  it  is  the  purpose  of 
flowers  to  produce  fruit  and  seed.     Now  in  the 
gumamela  we  have  a  plant  which  produces  fine 
flowers,  but  does  not  finish  the  work  by  ripening     Leaf  of  «u"iamela  from 

'  near    the    top    of    a 

the  seeds.     You  can  find  in  the  ovary  the  very          branch, 
young  seeds,  but  they  never  become  mature. 

The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  gumamela  has  been  cultivated 
by  men  for  the  sake  of  its  flowers  and  not  for  the  sake  of  its  seeds. 
Rice  is  cultivated  for  its  seeds  and  so  it  always  produces  good  seeds. 
But  the  life  of  gumamela  is  made  easy  for  it  by  keeping  away  all  its 
enemies,  and  it  is  reproduced  by  cuttings  which  men  make  from  the 
old  plants.  This  is  not  a  natural  way  of  reproduction,  but  it  is  an 
easier  way  for  the  plant  than  the  seed-method,  so  the  gumamela  has 
gradually  lost  the  power  of  producing  good  seed.  They  are  no 
longer  necessary,  as  they  were  very  many  years  ago  when  gumamela 
was  a  wild  plant.  But  gumamela  still  has  the  habit  of  making,  very 
handsome  flowers. 


52  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

CHAPTER   XII 

MACAHIA  ;    THE    SHAME-PLANT 

THIS  plant  has  a  very  good  name.  .Every  boy  and  girl  in  the 
Philippine  Islands  knows  that  when  the  macahia  is  touched  with 
the  hand  or  with  a  stick  it  bends  down  and  closes  up  its  leaves  as 
though  ashamed  of  itself  and  trying  to  hide.  Although  the  maca- 
hia hangs  its  head  as  though  in  shame  when  you  notice  it,  it  must 
be  a  very  happy  plant  if  plants  are  happy  when  their  lives  are  suc- 
cessful. Few  plants  in  the  Philippine  Islands  are  more  successful 
than  macahia.  It  grows  everywhere  and  spreads  modestly,  but 
rapidly,  crowding  out  other  plants.  It  produces  fresh  flowers  and 
fresh  fruit  every  day.  Its  seeds  are  very  healthy  and  soon  grow  into 
young  plants.  In  tropical  countries  the  macahia  is  considered  a 
troublesome  weed.  Plants  which  are  troublesome  to  the  farmer 
and  crowd  out  the  cultivated  plants  are  called  weeds.  Macahia  is 
one  of  the  enemies  of  rice,  and  the  rice-paddies  must  be  kept  care- 
fully cleared  of  it,  for  macahia  spreads  rapidly  when  the  water  stands 
low  on  the  paddy  and  crowds  out  the  rice. 

Although  macahia  is  a  wild  plant  in  the  tropics  it  is  a  very 
carefully  cultivated  plant  in  the  temperate  regions,  where  it  is  con- 
sidered a  great  curiosity.  There  it  is  called  the  "  sensitive  plant," 
because  it  is  so  sensitive  to  the  touch.  In  America  the  macahia  can 
be  grown  only  in  the  conservatories  because  it  can  not  live  in  cold 
weather.  The  glass-roofed  conservatories  are  carefully  heated  in 
winter  and  kept  at  just  the  same  temperature  all  the  time,  so  that 
many  tropical  plants  can  be  grown  in  them  quite  as  well  as  though 
they  were  at  home. 


Macahia. 


54 


A    NATURE   STUDY    READER 


There  are  many  public  conservatories  in  the  United  States,  and 
when  people  come  to  visit  them  they  stop  before  the  sensitive 
plant  just  as  they  might  stop  before  a  cage  of  monkeys  in  a  museum 
of  animals.  Macahia  is  one  of  the  few  plants  in  the  world  which 
seem  to  be  able  to  move  themselves  when  touched,  and  people 
who  have  never  seen  it  before  are  very  much  interested  in  seeing 
the  way  it  behaves. 

Macahia  may  be  called  a  creeping  herb.  Its  leaves  are  com- 
pound leaves.  A  compound  leaf  is  one  that  is  divided  into  many 
small  leaves,  which  are  called  leaflets.  You  can  plainly  see  that  the 
leaf  of  macahia  is  composed  of  many  pairs  of  small  leaflets.  How 
many  pairs  of  leaflets  do  you  usually  find  in  one  leaf  ?  The  acacia- 
tree  is  another  common  Philippine  plant  which  has  compound 
leaves.  The  acacia  and  macahia  belong  to  the  same  family  of 
plants,  though  one  is  a  large  tree  and  the  other  a  small  and  modest 
herb.  They  seem  to  be  very  different,  yet  if  you  compare  the 
flowers  and  the  fruits  and  the  leaves  of  these  two 
plants  you  will  see  that  in  many  ways  they  are 
much  alike.  At  least  they  are  near  enough  alike 
to  be  called  cousins. 

The  fruit  of  the  macahia  and  the  fruit  of  the 
acacia   are  both   pod-fruits.      A  pod   is  a  long, 
narrow  fruit  which  has  seeds  in  one  or  two  rows 
and  opens  by  splitting  down   the  middle.     The 
dap-dap  and  the  Spanish  flag  are  two  other  com- 
mon plants  that  have  pod-fruits.     All  plants  that 
have  pod-fruits  belong  to  the  same  great  family. 
This  family  is  a  very  successful  one  in  the  Philip- 
pines.     The   most  valuable  timber-trees  in  the  Islands  belong  to 
this  family.     It  is  called  Leguminosse.     Legume  means  pod. 


Fruit  of  macahia. 


MACAHIA;   THE   SHAME-PLANT 


55 


One  flower  of 
macahia. 


The  flowers  of  macahia  are  fresh  and  pretty  every  morning, 
but  when  afternoon  comes  they  have  faded  in  the  hot  sun.  If 
you  want  to  examine  them  you  must  be  sure  to  go  out  in  the 
morning.  Macahia  seems  to  have  a  round,  pink  flower,  but  when 
you  pick  it  and  look  closely  you  will  see  that  this  round,  pink  part 
is  composed  of  very  many  small  flowers.  If  you  gather 
macahia  flowers  before  ten  o'clock  you  will  find  a  small 
white  body  at  the  end  of  each  of  the  slender  pink  rays 
which  come  out  from  the  flowers.  These  slender  pink 
rays  are  the  stamens  and  the  white  bodies  at  the  ends 
are  the  anthers  which  contain  the  pollen.  Now  if  you 
want  to  find  the  tiny  corollas  of  macahia  you  will  have 
to  pull  one  of  the  clusters  of  flowers  apart  and  look 
very  closely.  You  learned  from  banana  that  a  cluster  of 
flowers  growing  close  together  as  in  macahia  is  called 
an  inflorescence.  The  flowers  of  acacia  also  form  an  inflorescence. 
If  you  carefully  separate  the  small  flowers  which  form  the 
inflorescence  of  macahia  you  will  find  that  the  corolla  of  each  tiny 
flower  is  not  more  than  an  eighth  of  an  inch  long. 
The  petals  are  united.  Four  stamens  and  a  long, 
slender  pistil  seem  to  come  from  each  flower.  The 
tiny  flowers  of  macahia  are  crowded  so  closely 
together  in  the  inflorescences  that  there  is  not 
room  for  a  pod  to  be  developed  from  the  ovary  of 
each  one  of  them.  Perhaps  there  are  fifty  flowers 
in  one  inflorescence,  yet  you  rarely  find  more  than 
eight  or  ten  pods  in  a  single  cluster.  If  you  watch 
a  macahia  inflorescence  from  the  time  it  is  very 
young  until  the  ripe  fruits  are  formed,  you  can  see  how  some  of  the 
pods  seem  to  get  a  start  on  the  others  and  soon  crowd  them  out. 


Flower  of  macahia 
cut  open. 


56  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

You  can  do  this  by  very  gently  tying  a  piece  of  thread  just  behind 
a  young  macahia  inflorescence  so  that  you  will  be  able  to  recognize 
it  the  next  day.  How  many  days  do  you  suppose  it  takes  for  the 
pods  to  be  formed  from  the  inflorescences?  You  would  be  sur- 
prised to  find  how  quickly  this  is  done.  Of  course  it  is  the  flowers 
whose  stigmas  are  the  first  ones  to  be  pollinated  which  are  the  ones 
to  get  the  start  in  developing  the  pods.  So  all  the  little  flowers  of 
macahia  are  trying  to  get  the  pollen  on  their  stigmas  as  soon  as 
possible.  The  stigmas  are  very  small,  but  since  all  the  flowers  are 
very  close  together  some  pollen  is  almost  sure  to  be  carried  from 
one  flower  to  another.  What  insects  have  you  ever  seen  visiting 
the  flowers  of  macahia  ?  Do  you  think  it  is  an  insect-lover  or  a 
wind-lover  ? 

The  pods  of  macahia  have  many  slender  spines  upon  them. 
Can  you  think  of  any  way  in  which  these  spines  help  to  scatter  the 
seeds  ? 


CHAPTER   XIII 

ABOUT    RICE 

WHEAT  is  the  most  important  food-plant  in  the  United  States. 
Millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  wheat  is  grown  in  the  United  States 
each  year  and  much  of  it  is  sold  to  people  of  other  countries.  Yet 
wheat  is  not  so  important  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  rice 
to  the  Filipino  people.  There  are  many  other  common  plants 
which  are  used  for  food  in  the  United  States,  so  that  if  the  wheat- 
crop  should  fail  there  would  be  many  other  things  to  eat.  But 
when  the  rice-crop  fails  in  the  Philippine  Islands  there  is  much 


ABOUT   RICE  57 

suffering  and  hunger.  There  are  many  other  plants  which  are  good 
for  food,  but  the  farmers  do  not  grow  enough  of  them  to  supply 
food  for  all  the  people.  Much  corn  or  maize  is  grown  in  some 
parts  of  the  Islands  and  used  by  the  people  for  food  instead  of  rice, 
but  the  corn-crop  is  only  large  enough  to  supply  the  people  who 
live  where  it  grows. 

Not  many  years  ago  when  the  rice-crop  failed  many  Filipinos 
starved  to  death.  Many  people  had  to  live  on  the  seeds  of  a  kind 
of  common  grass  which  you  call  amor-seco.  The  seeds  of  amor- 
seco  are  very  small  and  hard  and  not  good  for  food,  but  they  kept 
many  people  from  starvation. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  such  a  thing  could  not  happen  in  the 
Philippine  Islands  in  these  days.  When  the  rice-crop  fails  the  Gov- 
ernment is  ready  to  buy  rice  in  other  countries  and  sell  it  to 
the  people  for  what  it  costs.  The  Government  did  this  in  1902, 
when  there  was  a  very  small  rice-crop  on  account  of  the  death  of 
nearly  all  the  carabao.  The  Government  also  keeps  large  quanti- 
ties of  rice  stored  up  so  that  it  can  be  quickly  distributed  if  there 
is  danger  of  a  famine.  When  there  is  not  enough  for  people  to  eat, 
it  is  said  that  there  is  a  famine. 

There  should  never  be  a  famine  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  for 
no  country  in  the  world  is  better  for  the  growing  of  food-plants. 
The  Filipino  people  should  not  only  grow  enough  rice  for  their  own 
use,  but  they  should  grow  enough  besides  to  sell  great  quantities 
to  the  people  of  neighboring  countries,  just  as  the  farmers  of 
America  sell  much  of  their  wheat  to  Europe  and  receive  a  great 
deal  of  money  for  it. 

There  is  a  far  better  way  of  preventing  a  rice-famine  than  by 
buying  rice  and  storing  it  up,  or  by  sending  to  other  countries  for 
it.  This  way  is  to  learn  carefully  about  the  best  methods  of  rice- 


Three  common  kinds  of  Philippine  rice. 


ABOUT   RICE  59 

cultivation  and  then  to  use  them  upon  the  rice-farms  of  the  Philip- 
pines. When  the  Filipino  farmers  grow  their  rice  in  the  best  way, 
and  have  American  machinery  to  help  them  in  the  cultivation,  there 
will  be  very  little  danger  of  a  famine  unless  all  the  carabao  die. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  rice  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  In  the 
picture  you  may  see  three  kinds  which  are  common.  Some  of  the 
kinds  are  much  better  for  food  than  others,  and  it  is  important  to  be 
sure  that  the  seed  which  is  sown  is  the  seed  of  the  best  kinds. 

Rice  belongs  to  the  same  family  of  plants  as  the  common  grass, 
and  yet,  as  every  Filipino  boy  knows,  the  grass  is  one  of  the  worst 
enemies  of  rice.  Whenever  the  water  gets  low  on  the  rice  paddies 
the  grass  begins  to  grow  and  crowd  out  the  rice.  If  there  is  plenty 
of  water  on  the  paddy  the  grass  can  not  grow  as  well  as  the  rice,  for 
the  rice  is  a  water-lover,  but  much  water  kills  the  grass.  Another 
enemy  of  rice  is  the  common  field-mouse  which  eats  it  at  the  bottom 
whenever  the  field  is  too  dry.  So  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  most  im- 
portant thing  in  growing  rice  is  to  have  plenty  of  water. 

Since  it  is  important  to  have  plenty  of  water  standing  on  the 
rice  while  it  grows,  the  best  rice-land  is  very  flat.  The  more  the 
land  slopes,  the  quicker  the  water  runs  off,  and  it  is  necessary  to 
have  the  pilapil  very  close  together  to  hold  the  water.  What  you 
call  pilapil  in  the  Philippine  Islands  are  called  dikes  or  levees  in 
America.  In  Louisiana  and  Texas  much  rice  is  grown  on  very  flat 
land,  so  the  dikes  can  be  built  far  apart.  When  the  dikes  are  far 
apart  it  is  much  easier  to  use  machinery  in  cultivating  and  harvest- 
ing the  crop.  This  is  another  reason  why  flat  land  is  much  better 
than  sloping  land  for  the  growing  of  rice. 

The  flowers  of  the  rice-plant  are  very  small  and  grow  close 
together.  They  form  an  inflorescence,  as  in  macahia.  But  the 
flowers  of  rice  are  quite  different  from  those  of  macahia.  They  do 


60  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

not  have  any  bright-colored  petals.  They  do  not  attract  the  insects. 
But  if  you  look  carefully  at  the  inflorescence  of  rice  when  the  flowers 
are  ripe  you  can  find  the  stamens  and  the  stigmas.  The  stamens 
produce  a  great  deal  of  pollen.  The  stigmas  are  very  large  for  such 
a  small  flower.  From  these  things  we  may  know  that  the  pollen  of 


Taking  the  rice  home. 


rice  is  transferred  by  the  wind,  like  the  pollen  of  pandan.     The  rice 
is  a  wind-lover. 

The  leaves  of  rice  are  very  different  from  the  leaves  of  any  other 
plant  you  have  studied.     They  are  long  and  narrow,  like  leaves  of 


RICE-CULTIVATION  6l 

grass.  If  you  hold  a  leaf  of  rice  or  a  leaf  of  grass  up  to  the  light 
you  may  see  many  fine  lines  in  the  leaf  which  are  not  so  green  as  the 
rest  of  the  leaf.  These  are  the  veins.  In  the  leaves  of  banana,  rice, 
grass,  pandan,  and  many  other  common  plants  the  veins  of  the  leaves 
are  all  in  the  same  direction  or  nearly  so.  They  are  called  parallel- 
veined  leaves.  Many  plants  have  leaves  whose  veins  run  in  many 
directions,  like  the  strings  in  the  nets  of  the  fishermen.  Such  leaves 
are  said  to  be  netted-veined.  Do  you  find  more  leaves  which  are 
parallel-veined  or  more  which  are  netted-veined  ? 

The  leaves  of  rice  and  grass  point  nearly  straight  to  the  sky. 
They  do  not  seem  to  be  getting  all  the  sunlight  they  might  get  if 
their  leaves  had  the  position  of  the  leaves  of  papaya.  The  sun 
shines  directly  upon  the  leaves  of  papaya.  It  shines  obliquely  upon 
the  leaves  of  rice.  So  you  see  that  rice,  like  pandan,  seems  to  be 
afraid  of  getting  too  much  heat  and  light. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

RICE-CULTIVATION 

THE  cultivation  of  rice  in  the  Philippines  is  very  different  from 
what  it  is  in  America.  Texas  and  Louisiana  are  the  two  great  rice- 
producing  States  of  the  United  States.  In  these  States  a  man  who 
works  in  the  rice-fields  is  paid  about  two  hundred  dollars  in  Amer- 
ican money  each  year,  besides  his  board.  The  Filipino  workman 
does  not  get  nearly  so  much  money  each  year.  Neither  does  he 
produce  nearly  so  much  rice  as  the  American  workman.  This  is 
chiefly  because  the  American  workman  uses  machinery  which  the 


62 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


Filipino  does  not  have.  One  American  workman  with  the  aid  of 
his  machinery  can  take  care  of  about  eighty  acres  of  land  each  year, 
and  get  from  it  abcut  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pounds  of 
unthreshed  rice.  The  Filipino  workman  can  take  care  of  only 
about  three  acres  of  land  from  which  he  gets  about  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  of  unthreshed  rice0  So  you  see  that  the  owner  of  the  land 
can  well  afford  to  pay  his  workmen  nearly  ten  times  as  much  as  the 
Filipino  workmen  get,  for,  with  the  help  of  machinery,  they  pro- 
duce nearly  a  hundred  times  as  much  rice. 

In  the  Islands  we  have  lowland  and  upland  rice.  What  native 
names  do  you  give  to  these  two  kinds  of  rice  ?  Probably  every 
Filipino  boy  or  girl  knows  that  the  best  time  to  begin  to  cultivate 
lowland  rice,  which  is  the  common  kind,  is  in  June  or  July.  Before 
the  rice  is  planted,  the  land  must  be  very  well  plowed  and  har- 
rowed. In  America  the  plowing  is  done  by  gang-plows.  These 
are  plows  which  make  three  or  four  furrows  at  a  time,  and  so  do  the 

work  more  rapidly 
than  single  plows. 
Mules  pull  these 
plows  instead  of 
carabao,  and  they  go 
much  faster.  Six 
or  eight  mules  are 
fastened  to  one 
gang-plow.  In  the 
Philippine  Islands 
Gang-plow.  it  is  common  to  put 

the  seed-rice  into  a 

part  of  the  land  called  the  punlaan  late  in  the  month  of  July.  In 
August  the  young  plants  are  carefully  pulled  up,  their  tops  cut  off, 


RICE-CULTIVATION  63 

and  they  are  placed  in  the  fields  where  they  are  to  grow  and  bear 
seed.     This  is  called  transplanting. 

Now  in  America  the  rice  is  not  transplanted.  It  is  sowed  from 
a  machine  called  the  seed-drill.  The  seed-drill  plants  the  rice-seeds 
in  just  the  right  amount 
and  just  the  right  dis- 
tance from  each  other, 
and  does  the  work  much 
more  quickly  than  it 
could  be  done  by  hand. 

The  largest  and 
finest  machines  which 
are  used  in  America  in 
the  cultivation  of  rice 
are  the  machines  for  har- 
vesting and  threshing. 
With  the  use  of  a  machine  which  reaps  and  binds  the  rice  at  the 
same  time,  one  man  with  the  help  of  six  mules  can  harvest  from 
eight  to  twelve  acres  of  rice  in  a  day.  It  is  very  easy  for  you  to 
see,  however,  that  such  a  machine  would  not  be  a  good  thing  to  use 
upon  rice-land  where  the  pilapil  or  dikes  are  close  together.  The 
use  of  such  a  machine  is  practicable  only  in  very  flat  land  where  the 
pilapil  are  far  apart.  Since  the  pilapil  are  only  about  sixty  feet 
apart  in  most  of  the  rice-fields  of  the  Philippines  it  would  not  be 
worth  while  to  use  such  a  harvesting-machine. 

The  threshing-machine  can  be  used  no  matter  how  close 
together  the  pilapil  are,  for  the  unthreshed  rice  is  all  brought  to  the 
machine.  A  large  machine  can  thresh  fifty  thousand  pounds  of  rice 
in  a  day,  so  you  see  that  one  machine  could  do  all  the  work  for 
many  farmers.  In  America  the  owner  of  a  threshing-machine  takes 


Drill  for  planting  seed. 


64  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

it  around  from  one  farm  to  another  and  the  farmer  pays  him  for 
threshing  his  rice.  Sometimes  threshing-machines  earn  sixty  or 
seventy  dollars  in  American  money  in  one  day.  Such  a  machine, 


Machine  for  threshing  rice. 

and  the  engine  which  runs  it,  costs  about  twelve  hundred  dollars 
when  it  is  new.  They  would  be  very  useful  in  the  Philippine 
Islands. 

The  engine  which  you  see  in  the  picture  is  not  used  only  to  run 
the  threshing-machine.  It  is  also  used  to  pull  the  threshing-machine 
over  the  country  roads  from  farm  to  farm,  for  the  machine  is  very 
large  and  heavy.  In  the  picture  of  the  threshing-machine  you  see 
on  the  right  a  long  funnel.  From  the  end  of  this  funnel  the  rice- 
straw  escapes  and  is  piled  up  in  a  stack.  This  straw  can  be  used  to 
make  the  fire  which  runs  the  engine.  The  place  for  "  feeding " 
unthreshed  rice  into  the  machine  is  at  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of 
the  picture.  The  threshed  rice  comes  out  at  the  bottom,  near  one 
of  the  larger  wheels.  There  is  a  very  important  part  which  is  not 
all  shown  in  the  picture.  You  may  see  one  end  of  it  on  the  left 
side  of  the  picture.  This  part  is  the  broad  leather  strap  or  belt 


RICE-CULTIVATION 


which  connects  with  the  engine.  The  engine  is  placed  about  one 
hundred  feet  away  from  the  threshing-machine  so  that  there  will 
be  no  "danger  that  the  sparks  from  it  will  set  fire  to  the  rice.  The 
other  end  of  the  belt  passes  around  a  wheel  on  the  engine,  so  that, 
when  the  engine  turns  this  wheel,  the  wheels  of  the  threshing- 
machine  are  also  turned.  In  the  same  way,  when  you  ride  a 
bicycle,  the  energy  of  your  legs  turns  a  small  wheel,  and  the  turning 
of  that  small  wheel  causes  the  hind  wheel  of  the  bicycle  to  turn  at 
the  same  time,  for  these 
wheels  are  connected 
by  a  chain.  The  chain 
carries  the  energy  of 
your  legs  to  the  hind 
wheel. 

You  have  learned 
that  it  is  the  threshing- 
machine  which  does  the 
work  of  threshing  the 
rice.  You  have  learned 
that  it  is  the  steam-en- 
gine which  gives  the 
energy  for  doing  this 
work.  The  energy  of 

a     Steam-engine     COmeS  Portable  steam-engine. 

from  the  heat  of  a  fire 

which  changes  water  into  steam.  You  have  learned  that  it  is  the 
belt  which  carries  the  energy  of  the  steam-engine  to  the  threshing- 
machine.  You  know  that  the  unthreshed  rice  is  the  material  upon 
which  this  work  is  to  be  done.  You  know  that  threshed  rice  is  the 
finished  product  of  this  work. 


66  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

Now  if  you  understand  this  outline  of  the  work  of  a  threshing- 
machine,  it  will  help  you  very  much  in  understanding  the  next 
chapter,  which  is  about  the  work  of  green  leaves.  The  work  of 
green  leaves  may  be  very  well  compared  with  the  work  of  a  thresh- 
ing-machine. 


CHAPTER   XV 

THE  WORK  OF  GREEN  LEAVES 

THE  work  of  green  leaves  is  one  of  the  most  important  kinds 
of  work  done  in  the  world.  It  is  more  important  than  the  work 
men  do  in  building  houses,  or  in  making  roads,  or  even  in  working 
on  their  farms.  All  these  are  kinds  of  work  which  make  our  life 
easier  and  more  comfortable,  but  if  the  work  of  green  leaves  were 
to  stop  our  lives  themselves  would  stop.  Without  the  work  of  green 
leaves  all  the  work  of  the  farmer  would  be  in  vain.  He  would  never 
get  a  crop.  The  -work  of  green  leaves  is  not  the  making  of  food  for 
the  plants  alone.  It  is  the  work  of  making  food  for  all  the  world. 
Could  any  work  be  more  important  than  this  ? 

This  is  a  work  which  nothing  else  in  the  world  can  do  except 
green  leaves.  Men  have  invented  wonderful  machinery  which  can 
do  wonderful  things.  Men  can  build  engines  which  travel  more 
than  one  hundred  miles  an  hour.  Men  can  send  messages  around 
the  world  in  a  few  minutes.  They  can  send  messages  through  the 
air  for  hundreds  of  miles  without  even  a  wire  between  the  place 
from  which  the  message  is  sent  and  the  place  where  it  is  received. 
But  nothing  in  all  the  wonderful  inventions  of  men  is  able  to  do 
the  work  of  a  green  leaf.  The  machinery  which  is  at  work  in  a 


THE   WORK   OF   GREEN    LEAVES  67 

green  leaf  when  the  sun  is  shining  on  it  is  more  delicate  and  more 
wonderful  than  any  of  the  inventions  of  men.  It  is  the  only 
machinery  in  the  world  which  is  able  to  receive  things  from  the 
soil  and  things  from  the  air  and  out  of  these  things  make  food 
which  is  good  food  for  plants  and  animals  alike. 

Can  you  understand  how  it  is  that  all  our  food  and  all  the  food 
of  animals  comes  from  the  work  of  green  leaves  ?  We  eat  the 
seeds  of  rice,  but  it  is  in  the  leaves  of  rice  that  the  food  which  is 
stored  up  in  the  rice-seed  was  made.  In  the  same  way  all  the  nour- 
ishment which  is  in  fruits  comes  from  the  work  of  the  leaves.  If 
you  cut  off  all  the  leaves  of  the  mango-tree,  do  you  think  the 
mango-tree  will  bear  fruit  ?  We  eat  the  flesh  of  cattle  and  of  hogs, 
but  do  not  cattle  and  hogs  get  their  food  from  plants  ?  We  use 
fish  for  food,  and  perhaps  you  can  not  so  easily  understand  how  the 
food  of  fish  comes  from  the  work  of  plants,  but  it  is  true.  The 
large  fish  eat  small  fish,  and  the  small  fish  eat  smaller  fish,  and  the 
smallest  fish  of  all  get  their  food  from  the  millions  and  millions  of 
very  small  plants  which  live  in  the  water.  Many,  of  these  plants 
are  too  small  for  the  eye  to  see.  So,  wherever  you  get  your  food, 
you  may  be  sure  that  it  has  come  in  the  first  place  from  the  work 
of  plants  ;  work  like  that  which  goes  on  in  the  green  leaves  all 
around  us. 

It  is  very  fortunate  for  men  that  the  leaves  make  more  than 
enough  food  for  the  plants  alone.  If  the  plants  died  when  we  take 
food  from  them,  there  would  very  soon  be  none  left,  but  the  green 
leaves  produce  enough  food  to  keep  the  plants  alive,  and  all  the 
world  of  animals  besides.  We  may  say,  then,  that  men  and  animals 
live  on  the  surplus  of  food  produced  by  green  leaves. 

You  have  already  learned  that  the  materials  out  of  which  the 
green  leaves  make  food  for  the  plant  come  from  the  soil  and  the 


68  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

air.  In  studying  about  papaya  you  learned  that  the  little  root  is 
the  first  part  of  the  young  papaya  to  begin  work,  and  that  its  work 
is  to  find  in  the  soil  the  things  out  of  which  the  leaves  can  make 
food,  and  have  them  all  ready  for  the  leaf  when  it  has  unfolded  in 
the  sunlight.  The  material  which  the  roots  get  from  the  soil  is  like 
the  unthreshed  rice  which  is  fed  to  the  threshing-machine.  The 
material  from  the  soil  passes  along  the  stems  and  is  fed  to  the 
machinery  of  the  leaves. 

We  must  next  understand  where  the  energy  comes  from  to  run 
the  delicate  machinery  of  the  leaf  and  make  food  out  of  the  mate- 
rials of  the  soil  and  the  air.  Have  you  ever  noticed  that  green 
leaves  can  not  live  without  sunlight  ?  If  you  put  a  board  upon  the 
grass  and  lift  it  up  after  a  few  days  you  may  see  that  all  the  grass 
has  turned  yellow.  It  has  lost  its  green  color  and  has  begun  to  die. 
We  may  be  sure  from  this  that  the  green  color  of  leaves  has  some- 
thing very  important  to  do  with  the  light.  When  a  plant  is  grow- 
ing inside  of  a  house  its  leaves  turn  toward  the  window.  They 
seem  to  be  trying  to  reach  the  light.  Now  if  you  should  take  a 
piece  of  black  paper  and  fasten  it  very  gently  to  the  surface  of  a 
large,  green  leaf,  so  that  it  would  not  injure  the  leaf,  you  could 
prove  that  without  the  light  no  food  is  made  in  the  leaf.  Light 
can  not  pass  through  the  black  paper.  If  the  plant  is  in  the  sunlight 
all  day  long  there  will  be  a  good  deal  of  food  made  in  the  leaves, 
but  you  will  find  that  under  the  part  which  was  covered  by  the 
black  paper  no  food  has  been  made  at  all.  When  you  study  botany 
you  will  learn  how  we  may  examine  leaves  to  see  what  parts  con- 
tain food  and  what  parts  do  not,  but  even  now  you  can  understand 
how  we  may  prove  that  without  light  no  food  is  made  in  the  leaves. 
Also,  you  understand  that  the  first  thing  which  happens  to  green 
leaves  when  they  are  in  the  dark  is  that  the  green  color  all  disap- 


THE   LANTANA  69 

pears.  So  you  know  that  the  green  color  of  plants  can  not  do  its 
work  without  sunlight.  When  the  light  does  not  shine  upon  it,  it 
soon  disappears.  This  green  substance  in  plants  is  called  chloro- 
phyll, a  word  which  means  leaf-green.  The  chlorophyll  has  a  very 
important  part  to  do  in  the  work  of  making  plant-food. 

You  have  learned  that  food  is  made  only  while  the  light  is 
shining  on  the  leaves.  It  is  the  light  of  the  sun  which  gives  the 
energy  for  doing  this  work.  The  sunlight  is  like  the  steam-engine 
which  gives  the  energy  for  running  the  threshing-machine.  It  is 
the  chlorophyll  or  green  substance  in  leaves  which  catches  the  light 
of  the  sun  and  carries  the  energy  of  sunlight  to  the  delicate  machin- 
ery of  the  leaf.  It  is  like  the  belt  which  carries  the  energy  of  the 
steam-engine  to  the  threshing-machine.  The  chlorophyll  does  not 
do  the  work  itself,  but  without  the  chlorophyll  and  without  the  sun- 
light the  delicate  living  machinery  of  the  leaf  would  be  quite  unable 
to  do  the  wor-k  of  making  food.  Just  so  the  threshing-machine 
would  be  quite  unable  to  do  the  work  of  threshing  rice  without 
the  belt  and  the  steam-engine.  Just  so  a  bicycle  can  not  run  with- 
out the  energy  of  your  legs  and  a  chain  to  carry  that  energy  to  the 
hind-wheel. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE    LANTANA 


THE  lantana  is  a  shrub  which  is  common  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  and  in  many  other  parts  of  the  world.  It  is  a  very  success- 
ful plant,  spreading  rapidly  wherever  it  begins  to  grow  unless  it  is 
carefully  cut  out.  It  is  not  a  plant  which  has  any  plant-products 


70  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

which  are  valuable  to  man,  and  in  some  parts  of  the  world  it  is  one 
of  the  worst  enemies  of  the  farmer.  In  the  Hawaiian  Islands  the 
farmers  would  give  many  thousands  of  dollars  if  there  were  no 
lantana  growing  on  their  farms,  for  it  crowds  out  and  kills  many 
valuable  plants.  In  the  Philippine  Islands  the  lantana  is  not  so 
common  as  it  is  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  yet  there  is  danger  that  it 
may  become  so  common  that  it  will  cause  much  loss  to  the  farmers. 
The  lantana  is  a  plant  which  it  is  very  well  to  kill.  Its  seeds  are 
scattered  everywhere  by  the  birds,  so  that  it  spreads  rapidly  from 
place  to  place. 

Although  the  lantana  is  a  very  troublesome  plant  for  the 
farmer,  it  is  a  very  convenient  plant  to  use  in  learning  about  the 
structure  of  flowers  and  the  way  in  which  seeds  are  scattered.  In 
the  picture  you  can  see  the  little,  round  fruits  of  lantana  which 
grow  in  a  close  cluster,  and  when  they  are  quite  ripe  they  become 
black  and  juicy.  Many  kinds  of  birds  are  very  fond  of  eating  the 
little  fruits  or  berries  of  lantana.  In  the  center  of  each  little  fruit 
is  one  hard  seed,  and  when  the  bird  eats  the  fruit  it  also  swallows 
the  seed.  It  does  not  injure  the  seed  of  lantana  to  be  eaten  by 
birds.  The  birds  fly  away  and  after  a  while  the  seed  is  passed  from 
their  bodies,  and  if  it  falls  in  a  good  place  it  soon  begins  to  grow 
into  a  young  lantana-plant. 

You  may  always  tell  a  lantana-plant  by  its  pink  and  orange- 
colored  flowers  which  grow  close  together  in  a  group  or  inflores- 
cence. The  leaves  are  stiff  and  hairy.  If  you  look  on  their  under 
side  you  can  see  the  veins  very  plainly.  They  are  very  delicate  and 
beautiful.  Is  it  a  netted-veined  leaf  like  the  leaf  of  papaya  or  a 
parallel-veined  leaf  like  the  leaf  of  rice  or  of  banana  ? 

The  leaves  are  arranged  upon  the  stem  in  a  very  regular  way. 
They  are  in  pairs,  each  leaf  with  another  leaf  just  across  from  it  on 


Lantana. 


72  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

the  other  side  of  the  stem.  When  leaves  are  arranged  like  this  they 
are  said  to  be*  opposite.  Do  you  know  any  other  plants  whose 
leaves  are  opposite  ? 

Many  people  think  that  the  lantana  has  an  unpleasant  odor,  but 
it  is  not  a  strong  odor  and  should  not  keep  you  from  looking  at  it 
very  carefully.  Many  people  call  it  the  cemetery-plant,  because  it 
is  nearly  always  to  be  found  in  cemeteries. 

You  have  already  learned  that  the  lantana  uses  the  birds  to 
scatter  its  seeds.  If  you  watch  a  lantana  for  a  little  while  on  a  sunny 
day  you  are  almost  certain  to  see  many  small,  yellow  butterflies 

flying  from  one  flower  to  another. 
The  lantana  uses  these  butterflies  to 
carry  its  pollen  from  one  flower  to 
another.  Just  as  we  called  the  pan- 
dan  a  wind-lover,  we  may  call  the 
lantana  a  butterfly-lover. 

Now  let  us  look  carefully  at  the 
flowers  of  lantana  and  see  whether  we 
can  learn  how  the  butterfly  gets  the 
pollen.  We  find  that  the  little  pink 
petals  of  each  lantana-flower  are  united 
together  to  form  a  tube.  There  are 
four  of  these  petals  and  they  are  not 
all  the  same  size.  Two  are  larger 
than  the  other  two.  If  we  open  one 
of  the  tubes  of  the  little  flower  we 
may  see  that  the  stamens  are  fastened 
to  the  inside  and  that  they  are  about 

half-way  between  the  bottom  and  the  top.  How  do  you  suppose 
the  butterfly  reaches  them  ?  Certainly  he  can  not  enter  the  tube, 


Lantana  flower. 

Front  view,  showing  irregular  shape  of  corolla. 
2.  Side  view.  3.  Corolla  tube  cut  open,  show- 
ing position  of  stamens.  4.  Calyx  and  pistil. 


THE    LANTANA  73 

for  at  the  top  it  is  hardly  large  enough  to  let  an  ant  enter.  To 
answer  this  question  we  must  first  catch  a  butterfly.  You  can  do 
this  easily  with  your  hat.  Then,  if  you  hold  the  butterfly  very  care- 
fully and  look  on  the  under  side  of  its  head,  you  will  find  in  the 
place  where  the  mouth  ought  to  be  something  which  is  rolled  up 
tightly.  This  is  the  very  peculiar  tongue  of  the  butterfly.  When 
it  is  unrolled  it  is  almost  as  long  as  the  butterfly's  body.  With 
the  point  of  a  pin  you  can  carefully  unroll  the  tongue  of  the  butter- 
fly and  you  will  find  that  it  is  almost  exactly  as  long  as  the  corolla- 
tube  of  the  lantana-flower.  Now  you  see  how  the  butterfly  reaches 
the  pollen. 

But  is  it  for  the  pollen  alone  that  the  butterfly  visits  the 
lantana  ?  Why  should  the  butterflies  spend  their  time  in  carrying 
pollen  from  one  flower  to  another  if  they  get  nothing  for  it  ?  If 
they  eat  the  pollen  then  they  are  the  enemies  of  the  flowers  and  not 
their  helpers.  If  the  butterflies  go  to  the  lantana-flowers  only 
to  get  pollen,  then  why  should  their  tongues  be  long  enough  to 
reach  to  the  bottom  of  the  tube  when  the  pollen  is  only  half-way 
down  ? 

There  is  one  answer  for  both  these  questions.  The  butterflies 
do  not  carry  pollen  from  one  lantana-flower  to  another  for  nothing. 
They  are  the  servants  of  the  lantana  and  do  this  work  for  them,  but 
they  get  well  paid  for  it.  The  flowers  pay  them  by  giving  them 
plenty  of  nectar.  The  nectar  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  corolla-tubes, 
so  that  the  tongue  of  the  butterfly  must  be  as  long  as  the  tube  or  it 
could  not  reach  it.  While  the  tongue  is  reaching  for  the  nectar  it 
must  always  rub  against  the  stamens  and  the  top  of  the  little  pistil 
which  is  just  beneath  the  stamens.  So,  while  the  butterfly  is  get- 
ting its  food,  it  is  certain  to  carry  the  pollen  of  one  flower  to  the 

pistil  of  another  and  this  is  just  what  the  flowers  want. 

11 


74  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

If  you  pull  off  the  corolla-tube  of  lantana  and  hold  it  upside 
down,  when  you  squeeze  it  you  will  see  a  little  drop  come  out  of 
the  lower  end  of  the  tube,  unless  the  butterfly  has  already  visited 
the  flower  and  taken  this  sweet  drop  away.  This  drop  is  the  nectar. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

PANDACAQUI 

THE  pandacaqui  is  another  shrub.  It  is  sometimes  just  about 
the  size  of  lantana,  but  usually  it  is  larger.  Its  steins  are  more 
woody  than  the  stems  of  lantana. 

Pandacaqui  is  common  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  Islands.  After 
you  have  once  learned  to  know  it,  you  can  always  tell  it  by  the 
bright  white  flowers.  The  petals  are  united  into  a  tube  just  like 
the  petals  of  lantana,  but  there  are  five  of  them  instead  of  four,  and 
they  are  much  larger.  The  flowers  do  not  grow  quite  so  close  to- 
gether as  the  flowers  of  lantana,  and  the  petals  are  all  the  same  size. 
Only  two  or  three  of  the  flowers  in  an  inflorescence  of  pandacaqui 
are  in  bloom  at  the  same  time. 

This  plant  has  one  thing  which  is  quite  different  from  any  plant 
you  have  yet  studied.  If  you  break  the  young  stem  a  white  juice, 
like  milk,  comes  from  the  broken  end.  This  white  juice  is  very 
sticky  and  after  a  little  while  it  becomes  hard.  There  are  some 
trees  which  grow  in  the  Philippine  forests  which  have  a  milky  juice 
like  pandacaqui.  Rubber  and  gutta-percha  are  made  from  a  milky 
juice  which  looks  much  like  the  juice  of  pandacaqui  when  it  first 
runs  out  of  the  trees.  The  natives  cut  the  stems  of  these  trees  with 


Pandacaqui. 


76  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

their  bolos,  and  after  the  juice  has  run  out  and  become  hard  it  may 
be  taken  away  and  sold  for  a  good  price.  Have  you  ever  seen  any 
trees  whose  stems  are  cut  with  bolos  in  this  way  ?  Why  do  men 
cut  the  stems  of  mango-trees  with  their  bolos  ? 

Do  you  find  that  the  leaves  of  pandacaqui  are  much  like  the 
leaves  of  lantana  ?  Are  they  arranged  in  the  same  way  on  the 
stem  ?  Are  the  veins  parallel  or  like  a  net  ? 

There  are  many  animals  which  use  the  leaves  of  plants  for  food. 
How  many  kinds  of  animals  have  you  ever  seen  eating  the  leaves  of 
plants  ?  Of  course  the  animals  which  eat  the  leaves  of  plants  are 
enemies  and  the  plants  must  try  to  protect  themselves  as  well  as 
they  can.  The  grass  protects  itself  from  being  all  destroyed  by  the 
horses  and  the  cattle  by  being  able  to  grow  up  again  very  rapidly 
after  the  leaves  have  been  eaten.  It  does  not  kill  the  grass  to  have 
its  leaves  eaten  down.  Very  soon  new  ones  are  put  up  from  the 
roots. 

There  are  other  plants,  like  lantana  and  pandacaqui,  which  must 
protect  themselves  in  other  ways  from  the  leaf-eating  animals,  for  if 
their  leaves  were  all  destroyed  they  would  soon  die.  How  do  you 
think  the  leaves  of  these  plants  are  protected  ? 

Some  of  the  very  worst  of  leaf-eating  animals  are  different 
kinds  of  insects.  In  tropical  America  the  ants  often  eat  all  the 
leaves  off  a  large  tree  in  one  day.  Now  the  leaves  of  lantana  are 
well  protected  both  from  leaf-eating  insects  and  larger  leaf-eating 
animals  like  horses.  After  you  have  once  rubbed  your  hands  on 
them  you  can  understand  why  horses  and  cattle  and  even  insects  do 
not  care  about  them  for  food.  They  are  hard  and  tough,  and  are 
covered  with  stiff,  little  hairs.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  lan- 
tana is  such  a  successful  plant.  The  leaves  of  pandacaqui  are  not 
so  well  protected  as  the  leaves  of  lantana,  and  perhaps  this  is  a  rea- 


PANDACAQUI 


77 


son  why  it  does  not  spread  so  rapidly.  The  leaves  of  pandacaqui 
are  smooth  and  rather  soft,  but  they  are  protected  by  the  milky 
juice  which  is  in  them.  The  milky  juice  gives  them  a  very  bad 
taste.  Many  other  kinds  of  plants  are  protected  from  the  leaf-eat- 
ing animals  by  having  in  them  juices  which  either  taste  very  badly 
or  else  are  poisonous.  Animals  are  able  to  tell  which  plants  are 
poisonous  and  which  are  not  much  better  than  men  can. 

The  pandacaqui  has  a  very  peculiar  flower  and  a  very  peculiar 
fruit.    The  petals  of  the  flower  always  look  as  though  they  had  been 
twisted.     They  are  all  the  same  size, 
but   they  are  not   straight   like  the 
petals  of  other  flowers.      If  you  cut 
through  the  bud  or  very  young  flower 
of  pandacaqui  you  may  see  how  the 
petals   are   closely  twisted   together 
before  the  flower  opens. 

The  opening  of  the  corolla-tube 
of  pandacaqui  is  even  smaller  than 
that  of  lantana,  and  around  the  edge 
of  it  you  may  see  a  hard  little  rim, 
like  the  curb  around  the  top  of  a 

well.  The  stamens  of  pandacaqui  have  sharp  points,  and  you  will 
find  them  about  one-third  of  the  way  down  the  tube.  Have  you 
ever  seen  butterflies  visiting  the  flowers  of  pandacaqui  ?  When  you 
cut  open  the  twisted  tube  of  the  flower  you  will  find  that  the  stigma 
is  very  close  to  the  pollen-sacs  or  anthers.  From  this  we  may  think 
that  pandacaqui  does  not  have  cross-pollination  like  lantana,  but 
that  the  pollen  falls  on  the  stigma  of  the  same  flower. 

The  fruit  of  pandacaqui  is  even  more  peculiar  than  the  flower. 
If  you  pull  to  pieces  one  of  the  flowers  you  will  find  at  the  bottom 


Pandacaqui  flower. 
Flower  cut  open.     2.  Front  view. 


78  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

the  little  green  ovary  which  is  to  become  the  fruit.  It  seems  to 
have  just  one  part,  but,  after  the  work  of  the  flower  is  done  and  it 
has  fallen  off,  this  ovary  begins  to  separate  into  two  distinct  parts 
which  bend  away  from  each  other.  You  can  see  this  plainly  in  the 
pictures.  Each  of  these  parts  has  the  shape  of  a  crescent,  like  the 
moon  when  it  is  young.  They  bend  farther  and  farther  apart  as 
they  grow  larger,  so  that  when  the  fruit  is  ripe  there  seem  to  be  two 
very  distinct  fruits,  which  have  come  from  one  ovary. 

When  the  fruit  of  pandacaqui  is  ripe  it  changes  its  color  from 
green  to  red.  Can  you  think  why  it  does  this  ?  How  do  you 
think  the  seeds  of  pandacaqui  are  scattered  ?  When  the  fruit  bursts 
open  the  seeds  are  very  easily  seen,  for  they  have  a  different  color 
from  the  rest  of  the  fruit.  Do  you  know  what  this  color  is  ? 

You  should  understand  very  well  why  it  is  necessary  for  seeds 
to  be  scattered.  All  the  successful  plants  have  very  good  ways  of 
scattering  their  seeds.  No  matter  how  many  good  seeds  a  plant 
might  produce,  they  would  do  very  little  good  if  they  all  fell  to  the 
ground  beneath  the  plant  which  produced  them.  There  would  not 
be  room  for  more  than  a  very  few  of  them  to  grow  up  into  good 
plants. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

ILANG-ILANG 


OF  all  the  flowers  in  the  Islands  the  ilang-ilang  has  the  sweetest 
odor.  There  is  no  flower  which  gives  greater  pleasure  to  the  Filipino 
people  than  ilang-ilang.  It  gives  profit  as  well  as  pleasure,  for  from  the 
extract  or  essence  of  the  flowers  valuable  perfumes  are  made.  This 


ILANG-ILANG  79 

essence  of  the  ilang-ilang  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  plant-products 
in  the  world.  From  about  seventy-five  pounds  of  flowers  one  pound 
of  the  best  ilang-ilang  essence  is  obtained,  and  this  first  quality  of 
essence  is  worth  about  forty  dollars,  gold. 

The  ilang-ilang  is  a  good-sized  tree  with  rather  large,  smooth 
leaves.  It  is  often  grown  as  a  shade-tree  for  cacao-plants.  A  farm 
which  has  good  cacao-trees  and  good  ilang-ilang-trees  growing 
together  should  be  very  profitable. 

You  will  find  that  the  flowers  of  ilang-ilang  have  a  structure 
which  is  very  different  from  any  flowers  you  have  yet  studied.  Yet, 
like  all  other  flowers  in  the  world,  the  purpose  of  the  ilang-ilang- 
flower  is  to  produce  good  fruit  and  seeds.  It  is  like  a  different 
invention  to  do  the  same  kind  of  work. 

The  outermost  part  of  the  flower  is  called  the  calyx.  You  can 
see  it  best  when  you  turn  the  flower  upside  down.  Then  you  can 
see  three,  short,  thick  leaves  which  are  triangular  in  shape.  These 
leaves  form  the  calyx.  The  calyx  is  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
the  very  young  flower,  or  bud. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  as  well  as  the  most  valuable  part 
of  the  flower  is  the  corolla.  It  is  from  the  corolla  that  the  valuable 
essence  of  ilang-ilang  is  made.  The  corolla  consists  of  six  long  and 
narrow  petals  which  have  a  greenish-yellow  color.  It  is  quite 
peculiar  that  the  bud  opens  while  these  petals  are  quite  short.  They 
gradually  increase  in  length  until  they  have  about  the  shape  of  a 
wide  strap.  You  may  see  quite  plainly  that  the  petals  are  arranged 
in  two  different  sets  or  whorls,  three  in  each,  one  whorl  outside 
the  other.  A  whorl  is  a  set  of  parts  of  a  plant,  either  leaves  or 
flower-parts,  which  is  arranged  in  a  ring  around  the  stem.  Many 
plants  have  their  leaves  arranged  in  whorls.  In  the  common  kind 
of  ilang-ilang  the  three  petals  of  the  inner  whorl  are  marked  by  red 


Ilang-ilang. 


ILANG-ILANG  8 1 

stripes  at  the  bottom.  Can  you  find  these  stripes  ?  They  seem  to 
be  for  the  purpose  of  guiding  the  visiting  insect  to  the  place  where 
the  nectar  may  be  found,  and  where  he  will  be  sure  to  get  some 
of  the  pollen  on  his  body.  They  are  called  nectar-guides. 

Do  you  think  that  if  you  had  plenty  of  ilang-ilang-flowers  you 
would  know  how  to  get  the  valuable  essence  out  of  the  petals  ? 
Perhaps  you  have  seen  how  this  is  done, 
although  you  may  not  understand  it.  You 
know  that  when  water  is  very  hot  it  begins  to 
boil,  and  presently  it  passes  into  the  -  air  as 
steam.  You  know  that  if  you  hold  some- 
thing cold,  like  the  blade  of  a  knife,  in  the 
little  cloud  of  steam  presently  you  will  see 
drops  of  water  forming  on  it.  The  cool  sur- 
face of  the  knife  changes  the  steam,  which  is 

Flower    of    ilang  ilang, 

a  kind  of  gas,  back  into  a  liquid  again.     This      showing  nectar-guides. 
process  of  changing  a  liquid  into  a  gas  and 

then  changing  it  back  to  a  liquid  again  is  called  distillation.  The 
water  which  collects  on  your  knife-blade  when  you  hold  it  in  a 
cloud  of  steam  is  distilled  water. 

The  valuable  essence  of  ilang-ilang  is  obtained  by  this  same 
process  of  distillation.  The  essence  is  in  the  petals  in  liquid  form, 
but  if  you  tried  to  get  it  out  by  crushing  the  flowers  you  would  get 
it  mixed  with  other  liquids  which  spoil  its  value.  But  when  you 
heat  the  flowers  the  most  fragrant  essence  is  the  first  to  be  changed 
into  a  gas.  Different  kinds  of  liquids  are  changed  to  gas  by  dif- 
ferent amounts  of  heat.  Since  the  best  essence  of  ilang-ilang  is 
changed  to  gas  by  less  heat  than  the  other  kinds  of  liquids  in  the 
flower  this  is  a  way  by  which  we  may  separate  it  from  them.  So 
when  a  man  is  trying  to  get  the  best  essence  of  ilang-ilang  he  must 


82  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

be  careful  to  collect  the  first  gas  which  comes  from  heating  the 
flowers,  and  keep  it  separate  from  the  rest.  When  this  gas  touches 
a  cold  surface  it  changes  to  drops  of  liquid,  and  these  first  drops  are 
the  best  distilled  essence  of  ilang-ilang. 

Now  the  parts  of  the  ilang-ilang-flowers  which  are  most  dif- 
ferent from  the  flower-parts  you  have  already  studied  are  not  the 
most  valuable  parts  to  man,  but  they  are  the  most  important  parts 
to  the  flower.  They  are  the  parts  which  are  necessary  for  the 
making  of  the  fruit  and  seeds,  and  you  already  know  that  the  sweet 
fragrance  of  the  flower  is  only  to  help  them  do  their  work.  These 
necessary  parts  are  in  the  very  center  of  the  flower.  When  you 
first  look  at  them  you  see  nothing  which  looks  like  stamens,  and 
nothing  which  looks  like  a  pistil.  Yet  you  know  that  if  the  flower 
makes  good  fruit  and  seed  these  parts  must  be  there. 

The  part  of  the  flower  inside  of  the  corolla  has  the  shape  of  a 
triangle.  In  the  center  of  this  triangle  there  is  a  round,  green  part, 
like  a  small  button.  Do  you  find  that  part  ?  If  you  take  a  sharp 
knife  and  cut  through  the  very  center  of  a  mature  flower,  right 
through  the  little  green  button,  you  will  have  a  view  of  the  flower 
which  will  help  you  to  understand  its  parts.  In  the  picture  of  this 
view  of  the  flower  you  may  see  that  the  parts  to  right  and  left  of 
the  center  contain  very  small  grains,  which  are  just  dots  in  the  pic- 
ture. You  can  see  them  better,  perhaps,  if  you  cut  open  a  real  flower. 
These  dots  are  the  grains  of  pollen.  The  stamens  which  contain 
them  are  very  different  from  any  stamens  you  have  yet  studied. 
The  flower  of  ilang-ilang  contains  more  than  a  hundred  stamens. 

In  the  very  center  of  the  flower  you  find  other  small  round 
bodies,  a  little  larger  than  the  grains  of  pollen.  These  are  the  ovules 
or  very  young  seeds.  The  ovules  are  not  contained  in  a  single  part, 
as  in  all  the  other  flowers  you  have  studied,  but  there  seem  to  be  about 


CACAO  83 

fifteen  very  small  parts,  each  one  of  which  contains  a  number  of 
ovules.  These  small  parts  unite  at  the  top  to  form  the  green  button 
you  have  already  seen.  Each  of  these  parts  is  called  a  "carpel."  In 
all  the  flowers  which  you  have  already 
studied  the  carpels  have  been  united 
into  one  part,  which  we  have  called  the 
pistil,  but  there  are  a  few  flowers,  like 
ilang-ilang,  in  which  the  carpels  are 
separate.  Just  as  we  say  that  the  co- 
rolla is  composed  of  petals,  and  the 
calyx  composed  of  sepals,  we  may  say 
that  the  pistil  is  composed  of  carpels, 
although  these  carpels  are  usually  so 
closely  united  that  they  seem  to  form 

a  single  part,  as  in  the  lantana  and  pandacaqui  which  you  have 
just  studied. 


Flower  of  ilang-ilang  cut  open, 
showing  the  many  stamens  and 
carpels. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


CACAO 


HAVE  you  ever  known  a  boy  or  girl  who  does  not  like  choco- 
late ?  If  Filipino  boys  and  girls  do  not  like  it  they  are  very  different 
from  the  young  people  of  America.  Chocolate  candy  and  choco- 
late ice-cream  are  two  of  the  things  most  precious  to  the  appetites  of 
American  children.  A  boy  or  girl  who  does  not  like  them  would 
be  as  hard  to  find  in  America  as  a  cacao-tree  itself. 

No  doubt  you  know  that  chocolate  comes  from  the  cacao-tree 
and  that  this  tree  grows  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  Perhaps  you  do 


84  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

not  know  that  it  never  grows  in  the  countries  of  temperate  regions. 
This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  chocolate  is  so  valuable.  It  is  used 
all  over  the  world,  yet  it  can  be  produced  in  only  a  small  part  of  the 
world. 

Cacao  is  one  of  the  most  important  economic  plants  of  the 
Islands.  Economic  plants  are  those  whose  products  have  a  money- 
value.  The  value  of  the  product  of  one  good  cacao-plant  is  some- 
times as  much  as  four  or  five  dollars  in  Philippine  money  in  one  year. 
This  is  one  of  the  plants  which  should  be  cultivated  much  more  than 
it  is  to-day.  Its  cultivation  is  not  difficult,  and  some  of  the  best 
places  in  the  world  for  growing  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  Philippines. 

The  cacao  is  a  small  tree  with  rather  large  leaves.  Its  leaves 
and  stems  are  much  like  the  leaves  and  stems  of  other  trees,  but  its 
flowers  and  fruit  are  very  different.  The  tree  carries  them  in  a 
peculiar  manner.  The  flowers  of  most  trees  are  borne  upon  special 
stems  which  come  from  the  ends  of  the  branches,  but  the  flowers  of 
cacao  are  not  to  be  found  at  the  ends  of  the  branches.  You  will 
find  them  upon  the  rough  coat  or  bark  of  the  branches,  and  even 
upon  the  main  stem  or  trunk  of  the  tree.  It  seems  quite  strange 
to  find  the  delicate  pink  and  white  flowers  of  cacao  fastened  directly 
to  the  rough  bark.  This  is  an  arrangement  of  the  flowers  which 
is  never  seen  upon  the  trees  of  temperate  regions,  although  it  is  not 
uncommon  in  the  tropics.  Do  you  know  any  other  trees  which 
bear  their  flowers  and  fruit  on  the  bark  ? 

It  would  not  be  difficult  for  you  to  understand  why  flowers 
sometimes  grow  from  the  bark  of  tropical  trees,  but  never  from  the 
bark  of  the  trees  of  temperate  regions,  if  you  could  see  the  bark  of 
these  two  kinds  of  trees  side  by  side.  The  bark  of  trees  which  grow 
in  tropical  countries  is  usually  quite  soft  and  smooth,  while  the  bark 
of  trees  which  grow  where  winter  comes  is  nearly  always  thick  and 


Cacao. 


86  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

heavy.  Can  you  see  the  reason  for  this  ?  Now  when  flowers  are 
borne  on  the  bark,  it  is  necessary  for  the  delicate  little  branch  which 
carries  them  to  first  push  its  way  through  the  bark.  It  can  not  do 
this  when  the  bark  is  thick  and  tough. 

If  the  cacao-tree  grows  near  your  home  you  should  certainly  get 
some  of  the  flowers  and  fruit  and  examine  them  carefully.  No 
flowers  are  more  graceful  and  pretty  than  the  little  flowers  of  cacao. 
On  the  right  side  of  the  picture  the  flower  is  drawn,  enlarged  to 
about  three  times  its  natural  size.  The  five  straight  and  pointed 
parts  at  the  bottom  are  the  sepals.  The  form  of  the  petals  you  can 
see  best  in  the  picture  of  half  of  the  flower.  On  the  left  side  of 
the  picture  you  may  see  very  plainly  the  shape  of  one  of  these 
gracefully  curved  parts.  Now  can  you  see  that  there  is  something 
which  bends  over  from  near  the  center  of  the  flower  and  seems  to 

be  fastened  to  the  middle  of  the  curved  petal  ? 
That  is   one    of   the    stamens.      Each    of   the 
petals   has  a  rounded,   hood-like  part    in    the 
center,  and  each  of  them  seems  to  be  holding 
down    the    head    of    one    of    the 
stamens.     The  five  stamens  which 
stand    up    so    straight,    and    are 
pointed,  seem  to  be  more  for  dec- 
oration    than    for    use,    for    these 
stamens   carry    no    pollen.       You 
Flowers  of  cacao.  can  plainly  see  that  there  are  no 

pollen-sacs  or  anthers  at  the  ends 

•of  them.  But  each  of  the  five  curved  stamens,  which  seem  to  hide 
their  heads  in  the  petal-hoods,  carries  good  pollen. 

Cacao  loves  plenty  of  heat,  a  good  deal  of  shade  and  water,  a 
deep  soil,  and  as  little  wind  as  possible.  It  should  not  be  grown  very 


CACAO  87 

near  the  sea.  Some  of  the  valleys  of  the  Islands,  sheltered  from 
the  winds  of  the  coasts,  and  with  a  good  deal  of  moisture  the  year 
round,  are  ideal  places  for  cacao.  It  is  better  to  grow  it  on  flat 
land  than  on  the  slopes.  The  best  places  seem  to  be  in  Mindanao 
and  the  Visayas,  yet  there  are  many  excellent  places  in  the  shel- 
tered valleys  of  Luzon.  Many  good  cacao-trees  are  in  Pasay,  near 
Manila. 

The  cacao  may  be  planted  close  together,  for  it  does  not  need 
much  light,  and  it  loves  to  "  swelter  in  its  own  heat,"  like  people  in 
a  crowd.  You  can  always  tell  when  the  fruit  is  ripe  by  the  pleasant 
odor  of  chocolate  which  comes  from  it  then.  There  are  two  or  three 
kinds  of  cacao  in  the  Philippine  Islands  and  the  ripe  fruit  is  either 
red  or  yellow. 

The  many  seeds  are  arranged  inside  the  fruit  in  very  regular 
rows.  It  is  from  the  seeds  that  chocolate  is  extracted.  The  fruit 
must  be  gathered  by  cutting  it,  not  by  twisting  or  pulling,  for  the 
cacao  is  a  very  tender  tree.  It  is  almost  certain  to  be  injured  by 
the  wounds  made  from  pulling  off  the  fruit,  since,  if  the  bark  is 
torn,  this  gives  a  good  place  for  the  entrance  of  the  insects  which 
attack  the  wood. 

After  the  fruit  is  picked,  it  needs  to  be  piled  in  heaps  in  a 
closed  room,  or  put  in  bags,  and  left  for  a  few  days.  This  is  the 
process  of  ''sweating."  After  the  sweating,  it  is  much  easier  to 
separate  the  seeds  from  the  fruit.  The  seeds  now  have  a  rich  brown 
color,  and  need  to  be  carefully  dried  in  the  sun.  After  that  is 
done,  they  are  ready  to  be  ground  up  and  have  the  valuable  extract 
taken  from  them.  Most  cacao-farmers  sell  the  cacao-seeds  without 
grinding  them. 

Monkeys,  rats,  and  parrots,  as  well  as  insects,  are  enemies  of 
the  cacao  and  the  cacao-farmers. 

13 


88  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

CHAPTER   XX 

THE    AURORA  ;    A    VINE 

THE  aurora  or  morning-glory  is  one  of  the  commonest  and 
most  beautiful  of  Philippine  flowers.  It  is  well  called  the  "  glory 
of  morning,"  for  in  the  morning  you  may  see  its  hundreds  of  del- 
icate -purple,  or  blue,  or  pink  corollas,  but  in  the  afternoon  they 
have  wilted,  and  their  glory  is  gone. 

Aurora  is  the  first  plant  you  have  studied  which  has  the  habit 
of  climbing  upon  other  plants  or  upon  the  sides  of  houses.  Such 
plants  are  called  vines.  The  stems  of  vines  are  not  strong  enough 
to  stand  alone.  They  must  have  some  other  support  to  help  them 
get  their  leaves  up  into  the  life-giving  sunlight. 

The  difference  between  erect  plants  and  vines  may  be  compared 
to  the  difference  between  wind-loving  and  insect-loving  flowers  ; 
each  has  some  advantage  over  the  other.  You  can  see  that  vines 
have  an  advantage  over  erect  plants  because  they  do  not  have  to 
spend  a  great  deal  of  their  strength  in  making  stiff  and  woody 
stems.  They  make  other  plants  do  for  them  the  work  of  holding 
their  leaves  up  in  the  light.  Have  you  not  seen  mango-trees  almost 
covered  by  an  aurora-vine?  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  aurora  can 
not  find  anything  to  climb  on,  then  it  is  not  so  well  off  as  if  it 
had  a  stiff,  strong  stem  of  its  own,  no  matter  how  hard  work  it 
may  have  been  to  make  that  stem.  In  that  way  the  erect  plants 
certainly  have  an  advantage  over  the  vines.  They  are  more 
independent. 

Some  vines  climb  by  twisting  their  stems  about  the  supporting 
branches  of  other  plants,  while  others  have  special  little  holders 


Aurora. 


QO  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

which  are  called  "  tendrils."  The  aurora  climbs  by  its  twisting 
stem,  but  you  can  probably  find  near  your  house  a  vine  with  ten- 
drils. Tendrils  come  out  of  the  stems  like  leaves,  and  in  truth  they 
are  leaves  which  have  been  very  much  changed  in  shape  so  that  they 
can  do  this  special  kind  of  work.  Tendrils  have  a  wonderful  power 
of  feeling  and  holding.  They  are  long  and  slender,  almost  like  a 
piece  of  green  string,  and,  as  soon  as  their  delicate  tips  touch  some- 
thing which  seems  to  be  good  for  giving  support,  they  begin  to  wind 
about  it.  Sometimes  you  find  tendrils  twisted  round  and  round  into 
a  perfect  spiral.  It  takes  them  only  a  few  hours  to  get  a  firm  hold. 

Perhaps  the  commonest  kind  of  aurora  in  the  Islands  is  the  one 
with  purple  flowers,  though  that  is  not  the  kind  which  is  drawn  in 
the  large  picture.  The  one  with  purple  flowers  has  leaves  which  are 
divided  into  five  parts,  somewhat  as  the  hand  is  divided  into  five 
fingers.  The  leaves  of  aurora  always  have  long  u  petioles."  The 
stem  part  of  a  leaf  is  called  a  petiole,  and  leaves  which  do  not  have 
petioles  are  called  sessile.  Do  you  remember  any  plant  you  have 
studied  which  has  sessile  leaves  ? 

Long  petioles  are  very  useful  to  aurora,  or  to  any  other  kind  of 
vine.  If  you  look  at  aurora  closely  you  may  soon  understand  the 
need  it  has  for  them.  The  young  leaves  always  have  a  regular  place 
for  coming  out  from  the  stem.  You  remember  that  in  pandacaqui 
and  in  lantana  the  leaves  are  in  pairs,  and  each  pair  is  arranged  at 
right  angles  to  the  one  above  and  the  one  below  it  so  that  they  do 
not  shade  each  other.  This  is  a  very  good  arrangement  for  erect 
plants,  but  it  would  not  do  at  all  for  vines.  Vines  must  always 
have  one  side  against  their  support,  and  so  away  from  the  light,  yet 
the  leaves  must  all  be  on  the  light  side  if  they  are  to  do  their  work. 
Now  you  will  see  when  you  look  carefully  at  aurora  that  the  leaves 
are  fastened  first  to  one  side  of  the  stem  and  then  to  the  other, 


THE  AURORA;    A   VINE  $1 

although  the  broad,  flat  part  of  the  leaf,  which  is  called  the  blade, 
always  seems  to  be  on  the  sunny  side.  It  is  the  work  of  the  peti- 
oles to  carry  the  leaves  which  are  fastened  to  the  shaded  side  around 
to  the  sunlit  side.  You  can  easily  see  that,  if  the  leaves  of  aurora 
were  sessile,  those  on  the  shaded  side  would  have  a  very  bad  time  of 
it.  You  may  often  find  petioles  of  aurora  which 
have  twisted  clear  around  the  stem  in  trying  to 
keep  their  leaves  in  the  light.  The  stem  of 
aurora  keeps  twisting  as  it  grows  and  that  makes 
the  work  of  the  long  petioles  all  the  more 
necessary. 

You  may  often  find  on  the  aurora  two  small 
leaves  just  at  the  place  where  the  petiole  joins  the 
stem.  These  small  leaves  are  called  "stipules." 
The  stipules  have  just  the  same  shape  as  the  large 
leaves.  Although  they  are  so  small,  they  seem 
to  be  for  the  purpose  of  catching  and  using  any 
light  which  shines  past  the  larger  leaves. 

The  flowers  of  aurora  are  borne  on  slender  branches  which  arise 
one  from  each  leaf-axil.  The  axil  of  a  leaf  is  the  place  where  the 
leaf  or  its  petiole  joins  the  main  stem.  The  flower-bearing  branch 
is  called  the  "  pedicel."  The  pedicels  are  just  about  the  same  length 
as  the  petioles,  for  the  flowers,  as  well  as  the  blades  of  the  leaves, 
must  be  in  the  sunlight.  You  will  notice  that  there  is  one  flower 
for  each  leaf,  but  that  the  leaves  last  much  longer  than  the  flowers. 
Do  you  know  how  many  days  a  flower  of  aurora  lasts  ?  The  blos- 
som of  to-day  is  always  a  certain  distance  from  the  end  of  the  stem, 
while  the  faded  flower  of  yesterday  or  the  day  before  is  to  be  found 
in  the  axil  of  the  leaf  just  behind  it,  and  the  bud  of  to-morrow's 
flower  is  in  the  axil  just  ahead. 


Flower  of  aurora  cut 
open. 


92  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

The  picture  of  the  flower  cut  open  shows  very  plainly  the 
arrangement  of  its  parts.  The  pretty  corolla  has  the  shape  of  a 
bell  and  is  composed  of  five  united  petals.  You  can  tell  this  from 
the  five  pointed  parts,  like  a  star,  which  form  the  thicker  part  of 
the  corolla.  The  stamens  are  not  all  the  same  length  and  grow 
very  close  to  the  pistil.  The  stigma  has  two  parts.  Do  you  know 
whether  the  aurora  produces  good  fruit  or  whether  it  produces  its 
young  in  some  other  way  ? 


CHAPTER   XXI 

MANGO 

HERE  is  a  Nature-Study  subject  which  should  be  interesting  to 
all  people  who  live  jn  the  Philippines.  This  is  one  of  the  subjects 
about  which  you  may  be  able  to  tell  your  teacher  more  than  is 
printed  in  this  book.  All  Filipino  boys  and  girls  know  a  good  deal 
about  mangoes  and  mango-trees,  just  as  American  boys  and  girls 
know  a  good  deal  about  apples  and  apple-trees.  Apple-trees  and 
mango-trees  are  both  easy  to  climb.  They  both  give  a  pleasant 
shade  from  the  hot  sun  and  bear  fruit  which  is  very  good  to  eat. 
No  wonder  they  make  very  attractive  playgrounds  for  boys  and 
girls  ! 

The  mango  has  been  called  the  "king  of  tropical  fruits."  It 
grows  in  nearly  all  tropical  countries,  but  people  who  have  eaten 
good  Philippine  mangoes  say  they  are  the  best  of  all.  This  is  a 
product  of  which  we  may  be  very  proud.  One  of  the  first  ques- 
tions usually  asked  by  the  many  visitors  who  come  to  Manila  is 


MANGO  93 

about  the  famous  mangoes,  and  they  are  greatly  disappointed  if  it 
is  not  the  right  season  for  them. 

The  only  unpleasant  thing  about  a  mango  is  the  trouble  of 
eating  it.  You  know  how  hard  it  is  not  to  get  the  rich,  juicy  pulp 
on  your  face  and  fingers  and  clothes.  It  is  a  common  saying  that 
the  only  comfortable  way  to  eat  a  mango  is  to  eat  it  while  you  are 
taking  a  bath. 

Do  you  know  in  what  months  the  flowers  and  fruit  are  found 
on  the  mango-trees  ?  Do  you  know  whether  they  are  found  at  the 
same  time  in  all  parts  of  the  Islands  ?  It  is  true  that  the  flowers 
and  fruit  of  many  kinds  of  plants  do  not  appear  at  the  same  time 
in  all  parts  of  the  Islands.  This  is  because  the  rainy  seasons  and 
the  dry  seasons  do  not  come  at  the  same  time  to  the  whole  archi- 
pelago. The  rainy  season  usually  does  not  come  to  the  eastern  side 
of  the  archipelago  at  the  same  time  that  it  comes  to  the  western 
side.  Now  in  many  plants  the  time  of  flower-bearing  depends  upon 
the  different  seasons.  Some  plants,  like  gumamela  and  papaya, 
seem  to  bear  flowers  the  whole  year  long.  There  are  many  more 
plants,  however,  which  have  only  certain  times  of  the  year  for  pro- 
ducing flowers,  and  the  mango  is  one  of  these.  So  it  may  be  that 
when  the  mango-trees  are  bearing  flowers  in  one  part  of  the  Islands, 
they  may  be  found  without  flowers  in  another  part.  Yet  it  is  usual 
for  the  mango-flowers  to  begin  in  late  December,  and  the  very  first, 
high-priced  mangoes  are  sometimes  gathered  in  January.  From 
January  until  June  the  small,  fragrant  blossoms  are  very  abundant, 
and  their  pleasant  odor  perfumes  the  air  all  about  the  graceful  tree. 
There  is  much  pleasure  in  having  a  mango-tree  near  your  house  at 
this  season. 

Probably  you  have  all  seen  men  cut  the  bark  of  mango-trees 
with  their  bolos.  It  is  hard  to  find  one  whose  bark  is  not  scarred 


Mango. 


MANGO  95 

by  old  bolocuts.  You  know  that  this  is  done  to  hasten  the  com- 
ing of  the  fruit.  Men  also  build  fires  under  the  large  branches  in 
early  morning,  believing  that  if  smoke  spreads  among  the  branches 
at  that  time  the  fruit  will  be  better  and  will  ripen  more  quickly.  It 
is  not  easy  to  explain  why  the  smoking  and  cutting  help  the  fruit, 
but  you  may  understand  this  when  you  have  studied  botany,  which 
is  the  science  of  plants. 

It  is  believed  that  the  mango  is  not  a  native  plant  of  the 
Philippines,  but  that  it  was  brought  here  many  years  ago  from 
India.  Yet  it  seems  in  these  days  to  grow  even  better  in  the  Phil- 
ippines than  it  does  in  India.  There  are  many  other  useful  and 
common  plants  which  are  not  native  to  the  Islands,  but  which  were 
brought  here  from  other  countries.  The  Spaniards  brought  many 
plants  from  Spain  and  the  West  Indies.  Even  to-day  the  Agricul- 
tural Bureau  of  the  Government  is  trying  to  introduce  into  the 
Philippines  many  of  the  useful  plants  of  other  countries.  Very 
often  plants  which  are  introduced  into  new  countries  grow  there 
even  better  than  they  did  in  their  old  homes. 

For  a  tropical  plant,  the  mango  is  slow  in  growing.  You  must 
remember  that  plants  usually  grow  much  faster  in  the  tropics  than 
in  temperate  regions,  since  they  do  not  have  to  stop  growth  in  the 
winter.  Yet  the  mango  requires  at  least  ten  years  before  it  will 
bear  fruit.  When  you  think  of  the  quick  growth  of  papaya  and 
banana  this  seems  a  long  time,  yet  it  is  no  longer  than  the  time 
required  by  most  of  the  fruit-trees  of  temperate  regions.  The 
slow  growth  of  the  mango-tree  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the 
fruit  is  more  expensive  than  other  kinds  of  Philippine  fruits. 
If  mangoes  could  be  shipped  like  bananas  to  the  great  cities 
of  temperate  regions,  they  would  be  sure  to  sell  for  a  very  good 
price.  It  seems  impossible  to  keep  them  from  decay  more  than  a 


96  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

few  days  after  they  are  picked,  even  if  they  are  picked  before  they 
are  ripe. 

The  small,  whitish  flowers  of  mango  grow  in  luxuriant  inflores- 
cences. There  are  always  hundreds,  yes,  even  thousands,  more  of 
flowers  on  the  tree  than  there  ever  are  of  fruits.  This  is  also  true 
of  the  apple-trees  of  America.  In  spring  they  are  covered  over 
with  fragrant  pink  and"  white  blossoms.  Nothing  is  more  beautiful 
than  an  apple-orchard  in  full  bloom.  This  great  abundance  of 
flowers  seems  to  be  a  plan  which  the  tree  has  for  making  sure  of  a 
good  crop  of  fruit.  Thousands  of  the  blossoms  must  die  without 
producing  fruit,  yet  even  then  there  may  be  as  much  fruit  as  the 
tree  can  carry.  Always  there  are  accidents  which  destroy  many  of 
the  flowers,  and  the  fruit  which  first  begins  to  grow  crowds  out 
many  others  which  are  near  it.  It  is  the  same  way  in  macahia. 
The  tree  seems  to  understand  this  and  know  that  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  produce  a  hundred  flowers  to  be  sure  of  getting  one  fruit. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  enemy  of  the  flowers  of  mango  is  the  rain. 
They  never  begin  to  appear  until  after  the  regular  rainy  season  is 
over.  Then,  if  heavy  rains  come  while  the  trees  are  in  bloom,  thou- 
sands of  the  tender  blossoms  are  beaten  to  the  ground.  Perhaps 
you  have  heard  the  true  saying  that  a  good  year  for  the  rice  is  a 
bad  year  for  the  mangoes.  When  heavy  rains  come  and  injure  the 
mango-crop  they  help  the  rice-crop.  There  is  another  true  saying 
that  the  best  years  for  mangoes  are  likely  to  be  years  of  •much  sick- 
ness among  the  people  because  there  is  little  rain. 

Very  many  of  the  mango-trees  in  the  Philippines  seem  to  have 
been  blown  over.  The  main  trunk  lies  along  the  ground.  From 
this  we  may  conclude  that  the  roots  do  not  go  deeply  into  the 
ground,  but  are  shallow.  It  does  not  seem  to  injure  the  vitality  of 
the  mango-tree  to  be  upset  in  this  way.  It  keeps  on  growing  and 


THE   SOIL  97 

bearing  fruit  as  well  as  ever.  Its  long,  shiny  leaves  are  very  abun- 
dant and  form  an  excellent  wind-screen  for  plants  like  cacao  or 
coffee,  which  love  a  still  air. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    SOIL 

You  have  learned  that  animals  can  not  live  without  plants. 
Plants  are  the  great  source  of  food  for  animals.  You  are  now  to 
learn  that  plants,  with  very  few  exceptions,  can  not  live  without 
soil.  Soil  is  the  great  source  of  material  out  of  which  plants  make 
food.  The  air  also  supplies  a  necessary  part  of  the  food-material, 
but  air  does  not  have  so  great  an  effect  upon  plants  as  the  soil.  Air 
is  almost  exactly  the  same  the  world  round  and  it  comes  to  all 
plants  alike,  but  soil  is  of  many  kinds  and  each  kind  has  a  different 
effect  upon  plants. 

Soil  comes  from  two  sources.  It  is  made  of  decomposed  or 
broken-down  rock  and  of  material  which  comes  from  living  things, 
as  the  leaves  and  branches  which  fall  in  a  forest.  If  you  are  to 
understand  how  the  soil  has  been  formed,  you  must  try  first  to  think 
of  the  time  when  there  was  no  soil.  Perhaps  you  have  already 
learned  that  men  believe  that  ages  ago,  before  there  were  living 
things  on  the  earth,  the  whole  surface  was  covered  with  rock.  In 
our  time  we  find  the  land-surfaces  nearly  all  covered  with  soil,  but 
if  we  dig  down  we  soon  come  to  solid  rock. 

The  most  important  things  which  are  at  work  to-day  in  break- 
ing up  rock  into  soil  are,  air,  water,  changes  of  temperature,  and 


98  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

living  things.  Since  there  were  no  living  things  on  the  earth  at 
first,  and  since  there  can  be  no  living  things  without  soil,  we  must  try 
to  understand  how  the  first  soil  was  formed  without  their  aid.  First, 
let  us  think  of  the  work  which  the  air  did.  Air  is  composed  of 
three  gases,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  and  carbonic-acid  gas.  Now  the  last 
of  these  three  gases  has  the  power  of  changing  some  of  the  material 
of  which  rock  is  composed  from  an  insoluble  into  a  soluble  con- 
dition. Soluble  means  that  the  material  will  dissolve  in  water.  Now 
many  kinds  of  rock  are  built  a  good  deal  like  a  brick  or  stone  wall. 
They  are  composed  of  many  fine  grains  which  are  held  together  by 
a  sort  of  cement.  If  this  cement  has  been  changed  into  a  soluble 
condition  by  the  action  of  one  of  the  gases  of  the  air,  and  then 
water  falls  on  the  rock,  what  do  you  suppose  would  happen  ?  What 
do  you  suppose  would  happen  if  the  cement  of  a  brick  wall  were 
soluble  and  the  wall  were  covered  with  water  ?  You  would  soon 
have  nothing  left  but  a  heap  of  bricks.  The  cement  would  all  be 
dissolved  by  the  water.  And  so  it  is  with  some  kinds  of  rock.  The 
water  dissolves  and  washes  away  the  material  which  has  been  made 
soluble,  and  leaves  behind  only  grains  of  sand  or  soil.  So  you  can 
see  that  this  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  soil  was  formed  from  the 
rock  without  the  help  of  living  things. 

In  tropical  regions,  where  the  temperature  is  nearly  the  same 
the  year  round,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  see  the  effect  which  changes  of 
temperature  have  in  breaking  up  the  rock  as  it  is  in  countries  farther 
north  or  south.  When  water  is  changed  to  ice  it  increases  its  size. 
When  winter  comes  the  little  crevices  and  cracks  in  the  rocks  are 
often  filled  with  water.  You  can  easily  see  that  when  this  water 
turns  to  ice  it  will  help  split  the  rock  into  smaller  pieces  and  so 
help  in  the  great  work  of  soil  formation. 

The  thing  which  we  can   watch   most  easily  at  its  work  of 


THE   SOIL  99 

changing  rock  into  soil  is  the  water  as  it  runs  in  streams  or  dashes 
in  waves  against  the  shore.  Then  you  can  see  how  pieces  of  rock 
are  ground  against  each  other  until  they  are  worn  to  fine  sand,  which 
is  one  kind  of  soil.  When  the  streams  are  high  you  can  see  that 
they  are  carrying  along  with  them  much  soil  which  they  have  swept 
from  their  banks  higher  up  in  their  course.  Wet  soil  is  called  mud 
and  a  muddy  stream  leaves  much  soil  along  its  course.  T^hose  of 
you  who  live  near  rivers  have  surely  seen  how  much  of  the  land  on 
each  side  of  the  river  is  covered  with  soil  which  has  been  carried 
down  from  the  upper  parts  of  the  stream  at  flood-time.  Soil  which 
has  thus  been  carried  and  laid  down  by  streams  is  called  alluvial. 
Alluvial  soil  is  excellent  for  the  growing  of  cultivated  plants.  The 
fine  tobacco-lands  of  the  Cagayan  valley  are  all  covered  with  alluvial 
soil. 

Soil  composed  of  very  fine  grains  which  stick  closely  together 
when  they  are  wet  is  called  clay.  A  soil  which  is  a  mixture  of  clay 
and  sand  is  called  loam.  Nearly  all  soils  which  have  been  formed 
by  the  work  of  rivers  are  loamy  soils.  Loam  is"  better  for  the  plants 
than  either  pure  sand  or  pure  clay?  Pure  sand  does  not  hold  water 
well  enough,  while  pure  clay  holds  it  too  well.  Besides,  clay  is  stiff 
and  heavy  so  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  farmer  to  work  it  with  his 
agricultural  implements.  Soil  which  is  composed  of  the  decaying 
parts  of  plants  and  animals  is  called  humus,  and  this  kind  of  soil  is 
the  richest  of  all  in  food-material  for  the  plants. 

In  the  cultivation  of  plants,  perhaps  the  most  important  thing 
is  the  preparation  of  the  soil.  The  process  of  breaking  up  soil  so 
that  plants  can  live  in  it  better  is  called  tillage.  Plowing,  harrow- 
ing, spading,  raking ;  all  are  forms  of  tillage.  Tillage  helps  the 
plants  in  many  different  ways.  It  makes  it  easier  for  the  young 
roots  to  grow.  There  is  much  food-material  in  the  soil  which  the 


100  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

plant  can  not  use  because  it  is  not  in  a  soluble  condition.  The  little 
root-hairs  can  not  take  anything  from  the  soil  unless  it  is  dissolved. 
Now  the  farmer  when  he  plows  his  land  lets  the  air  reach  all  parts 
of  the  soil,  and  the  air  enriches  the  soil  for  the  plant  by  changing 
food-material  into  a  soluble  condition.  In  time  of  drought,  well- 
tilled  land  holds  moisture  in  it  much  better  than  that  which  has 
been  badly  tilled.  In  tilling,  the  farmer  can  kill  the  troublesome 
plants,  or  weeds,  which  threaten  to  crowd  out  the  plants  which  he  is 
cultivating. 

We  have  learned  that  by  cultivation  men  can  make  plants  grow 
much  better  than  they  do  when  they  are  wild.  But  there  is  a  price 
for  this  improvement  in  the  plants  which  the  soil  must  pay.  When 
plants  are  growing  wild  they  never  use  up  the  food-material  of  the 
soil  any  faster  than  it  is  formed.  One  of  the  reasons  why  cultivated 
plants  grow  so  much  better  than  wild  plants  is  because  the  farmer, 
by  tillage  and  other  means,  gives  the  plants  a  chance  to  take  from 
the  soil  as  much  as  it  can  of  the  food-material  which  is  there.  The 
result  of  this  is  that  after  a  few  years  the  land  becomes  exhausted  of 
food-material.  The  crops  are  better,  but  the  land  is  poorer.  This 
is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  farmer  must  give  much  attention  to 
his  land.  If  he  grows  tobacco  on  the  same  land,  one  year  after 
another,  the  tobacco  becomes  poorer  and  poorer  because  the  soil  has 
become  poor  in  the  particular  kind  of  food-material  which  tobacco 
loves. 

There  are  several  things  which  a  farmer  can  do  to  keep  his  soil 
from  becoming  poor.  One  of  the  best  things  to  do  is  to  put  fertil- 
izers on  it.  A  fertilizer  is  anything  which  is  rich  in  food-material, 
and  so  makes  the  soil  more  fertile.  Manure  from  the  stables,  guano, 
and  rich  humus  are  all  good  fertilizers.  Another  way  to  keep  soil 
from  becoming  poor  is  by  growing  different  kinds  of  plants  in  sue- 


TOBACCO 


cession  upon  the  same  land.  This  is  called  "  rotation  of  crops." 
It  has  been  found  that  different  plants  require  different  kinds  of 
food-material,  so  that  when  a  piece  of  ground  has  become  poor  for 
tobacco,  for  example,  it  may  be  all  right  for  corn.  Then,  after  a 
few  seasons,  it  may  be  all  right  for  tobacco  again. 

The  next  chapter  is  about  tobacco,  a  plant  which  is  more  easily 
affected  by  the  soil  than  any  other  important  economic  plant  of  the 
Philippines. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

TOBACCO 

TOBACCO  is  used  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  but  perhaps  nowhere 
more  than  in  these  Islands,  where  even  the  children  often  learn  to 
smoke  as  soon  as  they  learn  to  walk.  It  is  said  that  no  other  plant- 
product,  except  tea,  is  used  in  so  many  countries  and  by  so  many 
people.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  both  of  these  widely  used  plants  it 
is  the  leaf,  not  the  fruit,  which  is  the  valuable  part. 

Tobacco  was  not  known  in  Europe  until  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
about  three  hundred  years  ago,  brought  it  home  to  England  from 
Virginia.  It  is  said  that  when  an  old  servant  of  Sir  Walter's  saw 
him  smoking,  he  thought  his  master  was  on  fire  and  quickly  threw 
a  pail  of  water  over  him.  Tobacco  soon  became  very  popular  in 
England,  and  in  the  days  of  the  Colonies  it  was  the  most  valuable 
crop  grown  in  America. 

This  product  is  third  in  value  of  the  exports  of  the  Philippine 
Islands.  Nearly  six  million  dollars'  worth  in  Philippine  money  is 
sent  to  other  countries  each  year.  Cagayan  and  Isabela  are  the  best 


A   NATURE   STUDY    READER 

provinces  for  tobacco-growing,  yet  even  in  the  excellent  lands  of  the 
Cagayan  valley  the  cultivation  is  imperfect.  The  three  great  proc- 
esses in  preparing  tobacco  for  the  market  are  cultivation,  curing, 
and  fermentation.  Although  Philippine  tobacco  is  imperfectly  cul- 
tivated, imperfectly  cured,  and  imperfectly  fermented,  yet  it  is  con- 
sidered good.  This  plainly  shows  that  the  tobacco-lands  of  the 
Islands  are  very  fine.  The  tobacco  is  good  in  spite  of  the  imperfect 
treatment  it  receives. 

The  cultivation  of  this  plant  teaches  us  many  important  things. 
Not  only  does  it  give  us  knowledge  which  is  valuable  to  the  man 
who  grows  it,  but  it  also  illustrates  some  important  things  in  plant- 
life  which  are  also  true  for  all  plants.  No  plant  cultivated  in  the 
tropics  is  so  much  affected  by  its  surroundings  as  tobacco.  It  gives 
us  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  effects  which  surroundings  may 
have  upon  plants  in  general.  The  valuable  part  of  tobacco  is  the 
leaf,  and  leaves  are  more  easily  affected  by  their  surroundings  than 
are  flowers  or  fruit.  Thus  you  may  often  find  the  leaves  of  different 
plants  of  gumamela  or  culut-culutan  very  different  in  shape,  while 
the  flowers  and  fruit  are  exactly  the  same.  So  when  the  farmer 
wants  to  get  a  certain  kind  of  leaf,  instead  of  a  certain  kind  of 
flower  or  fruit,  you  see  that  he  has  a  more  delicate  problem.  He 
must  carefully  study  the  peculiarities  of  his  farm. 

Tobacco  is  easily  affected  by  climate,  soil,  elevation,  nearness  to 
the  sea,  light  and  shade,  and  methods  of  cultivation.  A  great  deal 
of  tobacco  is  grown  in  the  United  States,  but  it  has  never  seemed 
possible  to  get  leaves  of  such  good  flavor  as  those  grown  in  a  trop- 
ical climate,  even  through  the  most  careful  methods  of  cultivation 
have  been  used.  Recently  it  has  been  found  in  Connecticut  that  by 
covering  the  fields  of  tobacco  with  cloth  screens  a  much  better  kind 
of  leaf  is  produced  ;  almost  as  good  as  the  leaves  produced  in 


Tobacco. 


IO4  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

Cuba.  This  plainly  shows  how  easily  leaves  are  affected  by  their 
surroundings. 

Each  new  kind  of  soil  gives  new  qualities  to  the  leaf.  Tobacco 
grown  near  salt  water  burns  poorly.  Valleys  of  the  interior,  whose 
deep  soils  have  been  laid  down  by  streams,  seem  to  be  best  for  this 
crop.  Good  soil  for  tobacco  is  dry,  warm,  rich,  deep,  and  somewhat 
sandy.  The  Philippine  Islands  have  many  interior  valleys,  where 
now  only  wild  plants  grow,  which  might  be  used  for  excellent 
tobacco-farms. 

You  know  that  as  a  cigar  burns  it  leaves  a  great  deal  of  ash.  The 
material  of  this  ash  was  taken  from  the  soil  on  which  the  tobacco- 
plant  grew.  It  once  was  food-material  for  the  plant  Since  the 
burning  of  tobacco  gives  so  much  ash,  we  may  conclude  that  the 
plant  is  very  greedy  in  its  use  of  food-material.  We  can  easily  un- 
derstand that  where  tobacco  grows  the  soil  must  become  poorer  and 
poorer  in  the  materials  which  compose  this  ash,  unless  a  new  supply 
is  added  each  year.  Many  tobacco-planters  use  fertilizers  each  year 
to  renew  the  supply  of  food-material. 

Tobacco  is  one  of  the  crops  which  are  grown  from  seed  and 
the  seedlings  are  transplanted.  Very  young  plants  which  have 
grown  from  seeds  are  called  seedlings.  Rice  is  grown  in  the  same 
way,  but  tobacco  requires  more  care  than  rice.  The  very  small 
seeds  are  sown  in  good  soil  which  has  been  selected  and  carefully 
prepared  for  "seed-beds."  After  two  or  three  months  the  young 
plants  are  taken  up  from  the  seed-beds  and  set  out  in  the  fields. 
In  Cagayan  the  seed  is  sown  in  late  September  or  early  October, 
and  the  young  plants  are  transplanted  in  December. 

The  farmer  must  be  very  careful  of  his  seed-beds.  The  soil 
must  be  very  good  and  carefully  tilled.  The  seed  is  mixed  with 
sand  or  fine  wood-ashes  and  spread  smoothly  over  the  surface.  The 


TOBACCO  105 

surface  is  then  rolled.  The  seeds  are  so  small  that  forty-five  grams 
are  enough  to  sow  one  hectare  of  seed-bed.  The  beds  need  to  be 
shaded  after  the  planting,  and  shelters  about  three  feet  high  are 
usually  made  of  the  leaves  of  nipa  or  cogon-grass.  After  a  few 
weeks  the  shelters  may  be  taken  away.  White  ants  and  worms  are 
the  worst  enemies  of  the  young  plants  in  the  seed-beds. 

When  the  young  plants  are  taken  up  the  farmer  must  be  very 
careful  not  to  break  the  little  roots  or  the  plants  will  not  live 
in  their  new  home.  It  is  best  to  wash  the  soil  away  instead  of  try- 
ing to  shake  it  off.  The  ends  of  the  young  roots  are  covered  with 
hundreds  of  fine  hairs,  so  small  that  they  are  difficult  to  see.  These 
" root-hairs"  are  the  things  which  do  the  important  work  of  taking 
water  and  food-material  from  the  soil  into  the  plant.  They  have  to 
be  very  delicate  or  the  water  would  not  pass  into  them.  If  they  are 
all  broken  off,  the  little  plant  will  not  have  time  to  form  new  ones 
in  its  new  home  before  the  leaves  wither  and  die  for  the  lack 
of  water  and  food-material. 

Except  when  he  wishes  to  get  seeds  for  planting,  the  tobacco- 
farmer  usually  pinches  off  the  top  of  the  stems  of  his  plants  before 
the  flowers  have  begun  to  appear  upon  them.  All  the  food  which  the 
plant  makes  then  goes  to  build  up  the  leaves.  They  grow  to  a  much 
better  size  when  the  plant  does  not  have  to  do  the  work  of  making 
flowers  and  fruit.  The  young  side-shoots  or  "suckers"  are  also 
taken  off  so  that  the  whole  strength  of  the  plant  may  be  thrown 
into  the  leaves.  Taking  off  the  tops  of  the  plants  is  called  "topping." 
It  must  not  be  done  too  soon,  or  it  will  give  too  much  growth  to  the 
leaves  and  make  them  coarse.  If  the  farmer  wants  very  thin  leaves, 
it  is  sometimes  better  for  him  not  to  top  the  plants  at  all. 

When  the  field-workers  go  about  taking  off  the  tops  and  the 
suckers  they  must  also  look  out  for  worms.  There  are  large  to- 


106  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

bacco-worms,  like  caterpillars  in  shape,  which  eat  up  the  leaves  very 
rapidly.  They  try  to  hide  by  getting  on  the  under  side  of  the 
leaves.  Sometimes  worms  are  found  inside  the  stems. 

After  the  leaves  are  gathered  the  work  of  drying  or  curing  must 
begin.  The  leaves  are  gathered  on  bamboo-sticks  and  then  hung 
on  strings.  The  curing  takes  about  a  month.  After  that  the  leaves 
may  be  tied  in  bundles  and  sent  to  the  factories,  for  in  the  Philip- 
pines the  work  of  fermentation  is  usually  done  at  the  factories.  It 
is  the  fermentation  of  the  leaves  which  gives  them  their  good  flavor 
in  smoking.  Fermentation  is  really  the  beginning  of  decay.  The 
leaves  are  piled  in  heaps  and  then  are  pressed.  Sometimes  they  are 
soaked  in  a  kind  of  wine  which  helps  to  give  them  a  pleasant  flavor. 
This  process  takes  another  month  and  the  leaves  must  be  carefully 
watched  for  fear  they  may  ferment  a  little  too  much.  After  fer- 
mentation the  tobacco  is  ready  to  be  made  into  cigars  and  cigarettes. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

LANSONES 

LANSONES  grows  best  in  the  province  of  Laguna.  In  the 
month  of  October  the  boats  which  come  from  Laguna  de  Bay  down 
the  Pasig  River  to  Manila  are  nearly  always  loaded  with  many  great 
baskets  of  this  delicious  little  fruit.  Much  of  it  is  sold  in  the  mar- 
kets of  Manila  and  at  the  fiestas. 

The  lansones  is  a  native  plant  of  the  Philippines.  It  was  never 
brought  here  from  another  country,  like  the  mango  from  India. 
It  does  not  grow  in  the  countries  of  temperate  regions.  If  you  ask 


LANSONES  107 

an  American  who  has  not  been  in  the  Islands  very  long  whether  he 
knows  the  lansones  he  is  very  apt  to  reply,  "  O,  you  mean  the  fruit 
which  looks  like  a  bunch  of  big  yellow  grapes."  Every  American 
is  just  as  familiar  with  grapes  as  the  Filipino  is  with  lansones,  and 
the  bunches  of  lansones  certainly  have  much  the  shape  of  bunches 
of  grapes.  If  an  American  boy  saw  the  picture  of  lansones  he 
would  probably  be  quite  sure  that  he  was  looking  at  some  kind  of 
grape.  Yet  these  two  plants  are  really  no  more  related  than  pandan 
and  pina,  whose  fruits  also  look  much  alike.  Though  you  may  not 
have  seen  grapes  growing,  you  probably  know  that  the  grape-plant 
is  a  vine,  while  lansones  is  a  small  tree.  Wine  is  made  from 
the  juice  of  grapes.  The  skin  of  a  grape  is  soft  and  sweet  to  the 
taste  and  the  inside  pulp  slips  out  from  it  very  easily.  The  skin  of 
lansones  is  tough  and  bitter  to  taste  and  the  pulp  sticks  closely 
to  it.  The  grape  has  several  small  seeds  while  the  lansones  usually 
has  but  two  which  are  of  good  size. 

The  lansones-tree  is  usually  not  more  than  twice  the  height  of 
a  man.  It  has  a  peculiar  way  of  bearing  its  leaves.  The  petioles 
are  very  short,  as  you  may  see  in  the  picture,  but  you  can  not  see 
very  well  the  natural  position  of  the  leaves.  When  the  petioles  of 
a  leaf  are  very  short  the  leaves  of  one  branch  usually  lie  all  in 
the  same  direction,  as  the  leaves  of  bayabas,  but  in  lansones  the 
leaves  are  turned  in  many  directions.  This  is  one  way  of  keeping 
the  leaves  from  shading  each  other.  You  have  probably  already 
seen  that  plants  have  many  different  ways  of  doing  this  same  thing. 

Lansones  can  show  us  very  plainly  the  effect  which  cultivation 
has  upon  a  plant.  Since  it  is  cultivated  for  the  sake  of  its  fruit,  not 
for  its  leaves,  the  problem  is  not  so  difficult  as  in  tobacco.  Wild 
lansones,  the  very  great-grandfather  of  the  cultivated  kind,  is  found 
in  large  numbers  in  some  of  the  Philippine  forests,  especially  in  the 

15 


Lansones. 


LANSONES  109 

province  of  Bataan.  The  fruit  of  this  wild  form  does  not  have  a 
pleasant  taste  like  the  one  which  is  cultivated.  Also  you  will  find 
that  it  contains  five  seeds. 

Since  lansones  is  cultivated  because  the  soft  pulp  of  the  fruit  is 
pleasant  to  eat,  it  is  much  better  to  have  a  fruit  which  has  only  one 
or  two  seeds  in  it,  or  best  of  all  to  get  a  fruit  without  any  seed. 
You  already  know  that  the  best  kinds  of  bananas  are  those  which 
have  the  smallest  and  weakest  seeds.  Sometimes  a  fruit  of  lan- 
sones is  found  which  is  all  soft  pulp  inside  and  has  no  hard  seeds  at 
all.  Have  you  ever  seen  one  like  this  ?  Now  the  fruit  of  the 
wild  lansones  has  five  good  seeds  in  it,  and  even  in  the  cultivated 
form  we  find  that  the  fruit  is  divided  into  five  parts,  each  one  of 
which  is  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  holding  a  seed,  although  most 
of  them  are  not  developed.  How  do  you  suppose  this  plant  could 
have  been  changed  by  cultivation  so  that  it  now  bears  fruit  with 
only  one  or  two  seeds,  and  sometimes  has  no  seeds  at  all  ?  Let  us 
see  whether  this  matter  can  be  explained  a  little. 

You  know  that  the  natural  work  of  flowers  and  fruit  is  to 
produce  seed,  so  that  the  plant  may  be  reproduced.  You  know 
that  if  the  fruit  does  not  bear  good  seed,  the  plant  must  produce  its 
young  in  some  other  way.  Thus,  the  banana  produces  its  young  by 
means  of  suckers.  If  the  plant  is  successful  in  producing  its  young 
in  some  other  way  it  seems  to  be  willing  to  give  up  the  seed- 
method.  This,  too,  is  illustrated  by  the  banana  which  never  pro- 
duces good  seed.  So  men  by  cultivation,  by  reproducing  the  plant 
by  suckers  and  cuttings  and  not  by  seed,  seem  to  change  the  natural 
work  of  fruit,  or  at  least  to  relieve  it  of  a  good  deal  of  that  work. 
Thus  it  seems  to  be  the  natural  work  of  the  fruit  of  the  cultivated 
lansones,  not  to  produce  good  seed,  but  to  produce  much  juicy 
pulp,  pleasant  to  the  taste. 


110  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

Such  a  change  as  the  one  which  has  been  made  in  the  fruit  of 
lansones,  from  the  wild  to  the  cultivated  condition,  can  be  made  only 
in  a  great  many  years.  To  understand  how  this  has  been  done  by 
the  many  generations  of  people  who  have  cultivated  lansones  in  the 
Philippine  Islands,  you  must  understand  that  even  the  same  kind  of 
plant  does  not  always  bear  exactly  the  same  kind  of  fruit.  The 
same  kind  of  plant  will  produce  better  fruit  when  it  grows  on  very 
good  soil  than  when  it  grows  on  very  poor  soil.  Differences  in  soil, 
water,  and  other  things  will  produce  a  greater  effect  upon  the  leaves 
than  they  will  upon  the  fruit,  still  the  effect  upon  the  fruit  may  be 
seen.  So  you  might  find  a  tree  of  wild  lansones  whose  fruit  tastes 
better  and  has  smaller  seeds  than  the  fruit  of  its  neighbors. 

Now  suppose  you  cut  some  good  branches  from  this  tree  and 
transplant  them  to  the  soil  near  your  house.  The  cultivation  of  lan- 
sones probably  began  in  some  such  way  as  this.  Then  from  the 
new  trees  you  would  cultivate  again  from  the  one  which  bore  the 
best  fruit,  and  give  no  more  attention  to  the  others.  If  this  process 
is  kept  up  for  many  years,  and  new  trees  always  grown  from  cuttings 
and  not  from  seeds,  at  last  the  plant  may  seem  to  give  up  the  old 
habit  of  producing  fruit  for  the  sake  of  the  seeds  and  seem  to  pro- 
duce it  only  for  the  sake  of  its  juicy  pulp.  Man,  by  cultivation,  has 
relieved  the  plant  of  the  work  of  producing  seeds  since  he  always 
takes  care  that  the  plant  shall  be  well  reproduced  by  cuttings  from 
the  old  plants.  Somewhat  in  this  way  there  has  been  produced  in 
California  a  kind  of  orange  which  is  seedless.  It  should  not  be 
very  hard  by  careful  cultivation  to  get  seedless  fruit  of  lansones. 

This  same  principle  is  true  in  the  cultivation  of  all  kinds  of 
plants,  whether  they  are  cultivated  for  the  sake  of  the  fruit  or  for 
some  other  product.  Seeds,  when  sown,  usually  produce  plants 
exactly  of  the  same  kind  as  the  one  on  which  they  grew.  Yet  it 


THE   COCONUT-PALM  III 

may  happen  that  the  new  plant  is  a  little  different  from  the  old  one, 
and,  if  it  is  better,  it  should  be  carefully  watched  and  young  plants 
grown  from  it.  In  this  way  skilful  cultivators  often  improve  the 
fruits,  or  flowers,  or  leaves  (as  tobacco),  or  fibers  (as  hemp),  or 
whatever  else  may  be  the  useful  product  of  the  plant. 

You  can  see  in  the  picture  the  way  in  which  the  little  flowers 
of  lansones  grow,  scattered  along  the  flower  branches  and  are  not 
crowded  together.  They  seem  to  be  leaving  room  for  the  growth 
of  the  fruit.  Lansones  seems  to  expect  one  fruit  from  each  flower, 
and  does  not,  like  mango,  produce  thousands  more  of  flowers  than  it 
can  ever  expect  to  bear  of  fruit. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

THE    COCONUT-PALM 

No  plant  of  the  tropics  is  a  better  friend  to  man  than  the 
"  Prince  of  Palms."  No  plant  of  the  tropics  is  better  known 
throughout  the  world.  This  name,  Prince  of  Palms,  has  been  given 
to  the  coconut.  It  is  a  name  well  deserved  by  this  royal  plant. 
The  coconut-palm  is  both  beautiful  and  bountiful.  It  loves  to 
grow  along  sandy,  tropical  shores.  It  thrives  where  its  roots  are 
washed  by  the  waves.  There  it  may  be  seen  in  pleasant  groves, 
each  graceful  tree  with  its  splendid  crown  of  leaves  turned  toward 
the  sea,  as  though  to  welcome  the  ocean  breezes. 

The  history  of  the  coconut-palm  goes  back  nearly  as  far  as  the 
history  of  man.  Its  native  country  no  one  knows.  Even  in  the 
Philippine  Islands  there  are  sayings  of  the  people  which  are  older 

16 


112  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

than  written  history,  and  which  tell  of  the  coconut.  There  is  an 
old  saying  in  the  Visayan  Islands  that,  "He  who  grinds  the  poor 
will  grind  water  instead  of  oil  from  the  meat  of  the  coconut." 

Like  the  mango,  this  is  a  Nature-Study  subject  about  which 
Filipino  boys  and  girls  probably  know  more  than  they  will  find 
written  in  this  short  chapter.  They  know  that  the  fruit  of  coco- 
nut gives  food  and  drink  and  oil.  They  know  that  the  leaves  are 
good  for  thatching  and  for  making  baskets  and  mats.  Rope  is 
often  made  from  the  fibers  of  the  rough  husk  of  the  nut,  which  is 
called  the  "  coir,"  and  from  the  outer  part  of  the  stems  a  beautifully 
marked  kind  of  wood  may  be  obtained. 

Since  it  would  take  a  whole  chapter  to  tell  simply  of  the  uses 
of  the  coconut-palm,  and  you  already  know  most  of  these,  we  had 
better  give  our  attention  to  learning  how  the  plant  lives  and 
produces  its  valuable  fruit.  Try  to  get  one  of  the  flower-bearing 
branches  and  see  for  yourself  the  two  kinds  of  flowers.  They  are 
not  beautiful  or  fragrant.  They  grow  on  a  long,  slender  stalk  which 
is  called  the  "  spadix."  In  one  of  the  pictures  you  may  see  the  way 
in  which  the  flowers  are  arranged  on  the  spadix.  The  few,  round, 
female  flowers  are  at  the  bottom,  while  the  many,  small,  male 
flowers  are  scattered  along  the  upper  part.  The  male  flowers  nearest 
the  bottom  are  the  first  to  open  their  three,  stiff,  little  sepals.  In- 
side these  protecting  sepals  we  find  six  stamens,  but  no  petals. 

The  female  flower  is  more  difficult  to  understand.  It  seems  to 
be  formed  of  nothing  more  than  the  round,  hard  ovary,  which  grad- 
ually changes  into  the  fruit.  This  fruit  contains  but  a  single  seed. 
The  whole  fruit,  inside  the  outer  covering,  is  really  just  one  big 
seed.  The  white  meat,  or  "  kernel,"  of  the  coconut  is  the  food 
which  has  been  stored  up  for  the  use  of  the  baby  plant,  or  "  embryo," 
which  lies  embedded  in  this  white,  oily  meat.  Perhaps  you  can 


Coconut-palm, 


114  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

find  the  embryo.     It  looks  much  like  the  meat  which  surrounds  it, 
and  is  about  the  size  of  a  small  marble.     It  lies  at  the  end  from 

which  the  young  plant  begins  to  grow  when 
the  coconut  sprouts.  A  fruit  which  has  a 
hard  outer  coat,  and  contains  only  one  seed,  is 
called  a  "nut."  The  coconut  is  the  largest 
kind  of  nut  in  the  world. 

There  is  so  much  moisture  in  a  coconut  that  it  does 
not  have  to  be  placed  in  the  ground  in  order  to  make 
it  sprout.  It  is  common  to  hang  up  the  nuts  in  the 
shade,  or  pile  them  in  little  heaps,  and,  after  they  have 
begun  to  sprout,  they  are  transplanted.  In  the  West 
Indies,  where  coconuts  are  grown  on  many  plantations 
for  the  northern  markets,  the  seed-nuts  are  placed  in 
shallow  trenches,  and  covered  with  trash  to  shelter  them 
from  the  sun  and  keep  the  moisture  from  evaporating 
too  rapidly.  They  are  left  in  these  nursery-beds  for 
about  six  months,  and  then  planted  in  holes  at  least  ten 
yards  apart.  The  young  plants  are  put  down  so  that 
their  tops  just  come  to  the  surface,  so  that  the  roots 
may  get  a  firm  hold  on  the  soil.  It  is  quite  necessary 
for  shore-loving  plants  that  the  roots  should  be  well 
fastened  in  the  soil,  else  high  winds  would  be  certain  to 
overturn  them. 
Coconut-palms  should  be  planted  either  on  alluvial  soil, 
near  the  mouths  of  rivers,  or  on  sandy  soil  along  the  shores  of 
the  sea.  In  five  years  they  will  bear  flowers,  and  in  two  years  more 
the  first  crop  of  fruit  may  be  gathered.  Seven  years  is  a  long  time 
to  wait  for  the  crop,  but  then  the  tree  seems  to  make  up  for  lost 
time  by  bearing  a  great  deal  of  fruit,  and  producing  it  all  the  year 


Inflorescence 
of  coconut- 
palm. 


THE   COCONUT-PALM  H5 

round.  Seventy-five  nuts  each  year  is  a  good  average,  but  some 
trees  produce  over  two  hundred. 

There  is  a  tree  on  a  coconut-plantation  near  Zamboanga  which 
has  never  failed  for  twenty-three  years  to  produce  two  hundred 
coconuts  each  year.  On  this  plantation  many  new  plants  have  been 
set  out  in  past  years,  but  it  has  not  been  the  plan  to  take  the  seeds 
for  planting  from  the  tree  which  bore  two  hundred  nuts  any  more 
than  from  the  other  trees.  You  can  understand,  from  your  study 
of  the  cultivation  of  lanzones,  how  much  better  it  would  be  always  to 
take  the  seeds  for  planting  from  the  most  productive  trees. 

When  we  examine  a  ripe  coconut  the  first  thing  we  see  is  the 
rough,  fibrous,  outer  coat.  This  is  the  part  called  the  coir.  When 
the  nut  is  broken  open,  the  milk  runs  out  from  the  center,  and  we 
can  see  the  white  meat,  or  kernel,  which  lines  the  shell.  This  meat, 
when  well  dried,  is  called  "  copra,"  and  it  is  the  most  valuable  prod- 
uct of  the  coconut.  Much  of  it  is  prepared  in  the  Philippines  and 
other  tropical  islands.  A  great  deal  is  shipped  to  Marseilles,  in 
France,  and  there  it  is  prepared,  in  different  forms,  for  the  markets 
of  the  world.  Coconut-oil  is  extracted  from  the  copra,  and  the 
part  which  remains  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of  a  number  of  other 
products.  The  factories  of  Marseilles  make  a  large  profit  in  manu- 
facturing the  products  of  copra,  and  it  would  be  far  better  for  the 
coconut  industry  in  the  Philippine  Islands  if  we  had  our  own  facto- 
ries for  this  purpose. 

It  is  common  for  Filipino  coconut-growers  to  throw  away  the 
husks.  Often  you  may  see  thousands  of  them  piled  up  near  coco- 
nut-plantations and  left  to  decay.  This  is  a  wasteful  practice,  for 
the  fibers  of  these  husks  have  commercial  value  for  rope-making. 
The  coconut-grower  could  make  a  good  profit  if  he  would  take  the 
trouble  of  preparing  these  fibers  for  the  market.  Machines  are 


Il6  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

used  at  many  factories  for  separating  the  nuts  from  the  husks.  This 
work,  which  is  all  done  by  hand  in  the  Philippines,  can  be  done  by  one 
of  these  machines  at  the  rate  of  five  hundred  to  a  thousand  nuts  in  an 
hour.  The  husks  are  kept  just  as  carefully  as  the  nuts  themselves. 

We  can  easily  understand  what  these  thick,  fibrous  husks  are 
for  when  we  think  of  the  height  of  the  coconut-trees  and  the  weight 
of  the  nuts.  If  they  were  not  protected  by  these  husks,  the  nuts 
would  be  quite  sure  to  burst  open  when  they  fall  to  the  ground. 
Then  the  milk  would  escape  and  they  would  decay  long  before  the 
embryo  had  grown  into  a  young  plant.  Of  course  the  nuts  are 
picked  and  not  allowed  to  fall  to  the  ground  when  they  are  gathered 
for  the  market,  but  the  plant  had  probably  learned  to  protect  its 
fruit  with  a  heavy  husk  long  before  men,  or  even  monkeys,  had 
learned  to  climb  the  trees  to  get  them. 

Two  of  the  worst  enemies  of  the  coconut  are  rats  and  beetles. 
There  is  a  kind  of  rat  which  makes  its  nests  in  the  trash  which  col- 
lects in  the  axils  of  the  big  leaves  and  then  preys  on  the  young  nuts. 
The  beetle  which  preys  on  the  coconut  is  called  the  "rhinoceros- 
beetle."  It  is  very  strong  and  bores  its  way  into  the  stem.  Its  fav- 
orite place  of  attack  is  the  axils  of  the  young  leaves.  A  good  pro- 
tection is  to  place  handfuls  of  sand  in  these  places. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

GUAVA     OR     BAYABAS 


THE  guava  is  one  of  the  best-known  tropical  fruits.     It  is  com- 
mon in  the  Eastern  and  Western  tropics  alike.     Guava-jelly  is  one 


GUAVA  OR  BAYABAS  117 

of  the  most  delicious  of  preserves  and  is  sold  all  over  the  world. 
Some  people  are  fond  of  the  fruit  just  as  it  is  picked  from  the  tree, 
but  is  better  when  eaten  with  sugar. 

There  are  several  kinds  of  guava.  One  is  a  shrub,  while  an- 
other is  a  large  tree  from  which  beautiful  wood  is  obtained.  But 
the  common  kind  of  guava  is  a  small  tree,  usually  about  twelve  feet 
high,  with  simple,  opposite  leaves  and  small,  white  flowers.  Surely 
you  have  all  seen  it  growing  near  the  houses,  and  have  gathered 
the  ripe  fruit  with  a  long  stick  and  a  bent  wire. 

There  has  been  much  dispute  among  botanists  in  the  Philip- 
pines as  to  whether  guava  is  a  native  plant  of  the  Islands  or  has 
been  introduced  from  a  foreign  country.  Some  were  very  sure  that 
the  guava  is  an  introduced  plant,  but  Padre  Blanco  proved  that  it  is 
native  to  the  Islands.  Blanco  was  an  Augustinian,  and,  until  his 
death  in  1845,  was  the  greatest  botanist  in  the  Philippines.  In  his 
famous  work,  the  Flora  Filipinas,  he  tells  how  he  found  that  guava 
must  surely  have  been  here  long  before  the  Spaniards  came  to  the 
Islands.  Padre  Blanco  traveled  very  much  in  the  Islands  and 
studied  Nature  carefully  wherever  he  went.  In  the  southern  part  of 
Luzon  he  once  examined  some  rock  whith  had  been  formed  from 
the  lava  which  had  been  poured  out  of  a  volcano  in  an  eruption 
many  hundreds  of  years  before.  You  have  all  heard  of  the  famous 
volcanoes  of  Taal  and  Mayon.  There  is  a  picture  of  Mayon  on  the 
Philippine  money.  You  may  wonder  how  he  proved  that  guava  is 
not  an  introduced  plant  by  examining  some  volcanic  rock,  but  that 
is  just  what  he  did. 

When  there  is  an  eruption  of  a  volcano  much  lava  pours  from 
the  mouth  or  crater  at  the  top  of  the  peak.  This  hot  lava  is  noth- 
ing more  than  melted  rock,  and  when  at  last  it  becomes  cool  it  is 
quite  as  hard  as  any  other  kind  of  rock.  When  the  lava  runs  down 


Guava,  or  bayabas. 


GUAVA   OR   BAYABAS  1 19 

the  sides  of  the  volcano  and  spreads  over  the  surrounding  lands,  the 
plants,  and  sometimes  people  too,  are  buried  alive.  After  many 
years  some  one  may  come  and  break  open  the  lava-rock  and  find 
there  the  exact  forms  of  the  things  which  were  buried  under  the 
flood  of  lava  at  the  time  of  the  eruption. 

Now  when  Padre  Blanco  broke  open  a  piece  of  lava-rock  in 
southern  Luzon  he  found  there  the  outline  of  a  leaf  of  guava.  It 
was  exactly  like  the  leaves  which  the  guava-plant  bears  to-day. 
Even  the  fine  veins  could  be  seen.  After  a  while  the  fruit  of 
guava  was  also  found.  These  forms  of  once-living  things  which 
are  found  in  rocks  are  called  "  fossils."  Now  when  Padre  Blanco 
found  the  fossils  of  guava  leaves  and  fruit,  he  had  proved  that 
guava  grew  in  the  Islands  long  before  the  Spaniards  came,  for  it 
had  already  been  proved  that  the  volcanic  eruption  which  buried 
these  leaves  and  fruit  must  have  occurred  long  before  white  men 
came  to  these  shores. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  live  guava-plant  of  to-day.  When  you 
feel  its  hard,  tough  leaves  "with  their  strong  veins  and  midrib  you 
can  better  understand  how  they  might  leave  their  outline  printed  in 
the  rocks  where  thinner  and  more  delicate  leaves  would  leave  no 
trace  at  all.  The  leaf  of  guava  has  a  very  symmetrical  arrangement 
of  the  veins.  After  you  have  once  examined  it  you  may  tell  guava 
from  the  leaves  even  if  you  do  not  see  the  rest  of  the  plant.  So  we 
say  that  it  has  a  very  characteristic  leaf.  It  was  because  guava  has 
a  characteristic  leaf  that  Padre  Blanco  could  be  sure  of  the  identity 
of  the  fossils  which  he  found.  Many  other  plants  have  leaves  so 
very  much  alike  that  we  could  not  be  at  all  sure  of  their  identity  if 
we  had  to  judge  from  the  leaves  alone. 

You  will  nearly  always  find  that  some  of  the  leaves  of  guava 
have  holes  in  them,  such  as  you  see  in  the  picture.  These  holes 


I2O 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


have  been  made  by  insects.     Have  you  ever  seen  1-eaf-eating  insects 
at  work  on  the  leaves  of  guava  ? 

The  leaves  are  opposite  and  have  very  short  petioles.  In  pan- 
dacaqui  we  also  found  opposite  leaves  with  short  petioles,  but  they 
are  very  differently  arranged  on  the  stem  from  those  of  guava. 
Each  pair  of  leaves  of  pandacaqui  is  at  right  angles  to  the  pair  just 
above  and  the  pair  just  below.  This  arrangement  prevents  them 
from  shading  each  other.  Now  in  guava  we  find  that  the  pairs  of 

leaves  are  not  at  right  angles  to  each  other, 
but  all  lie  in  nearly  the  same  plane.  Can 
you  explain  the  reason  for  the  difference  in 
these  two  arrangements  ?  Perhaps  you  can 
find  an  explanation  in  the  fact  that  the 
stems  of  pandacaqui  have  nearly  a  vertical 
position,  while  the  branches  of  guava  are 
nearly  horizontal. 

The  young  parts  of  the  branches  of 
guava  have  a  character  which  disappears 
when  they  become  older.  They  are  four- 
sided  instead  of  round,  like  the  older  parts, 
and  each  of  the  four  edges  has  a  soft, 
green  ridge  running  along  it.  This  is  one 
Flower  of  guava,  cut  in  half,  of  the  characters  of  the  plant  for  which  we 

can  not  well  give  a  reason,  but  which    is 

important  to  remember  because  such  peculiarities  help  us  in  telling 
different  plants  apart. 

The  flower  of  guava  is  quite  different  from  those  you  have 
studied  before.  If  you  are  reading  this  chapter  at  a  time  when  the 
guava-trees  near  your  home  are  in  bloom,  you  should  be  sure  to  get 
some  and  examine  them  carefully.  You  can  always  learn  about 


GUAVA   OR   BAY  ABAS  121 

Nature  much  better  by  studying  Nature  herself  than  by  looking  at 
pictures,  no  matter  how  good  the  pictures  may  be. 

Perhaps  the  first  things  which  you  notice  in  the  picture  of  the 
guava-flower  are  that  the  stamens  are  very  many,  and  that  the  ovary 
is  beneath  both  the  sepals  and  the  petals.  When  an  ovary  has  this 
position,  which  you  have  already  seen  in  the  flower  of  banana,  it 
is  said  to  be  inferior ;  that  is,  it  is  inferior  or  below  the  calyx  and 
corolla.  In  most  of  the  flowers  which  you  have  studied  the  ovary 
has  been  found  above  the  bottom  of  the  corolla.  An  ovary  in  this 
position  is  said  to  be  superior.  Now  plants  are  divided  into  differ- 
ent groups  according  to  the  character  of  their  flower-parts,  and  the 
character  of  the  ovary  is  one  of  the  most  important  things  to  notice 
if  we  care  to  know  to  what  great  group  a  plant  belongs. 

The  flower  of  guava  is  a  good  deal  like  the  flower  of  the  apple- 
trees  of  America,  of  which  you  have  heard  so  much.  They,  too, 
are  white,  often  pinkish-white,  and  have  many  stamens  and  an  in- 
ferior ovary.  After  pollination  the  ovary  begins  to  turn  into  fruit, 
and  since  the  ovary  is  really  in  the  top  of  the  stem,  a  good  deal  of 
the  part  of  the  fruit  which  we  eat  is  formed  from  the  top  of  the 
stem. 

Another  peculiar  thing  about  the  flower  of  guava  is  that,  al- 
though the  petals  soon  fall  off,  the  stamens  and  sepals  remain  fast- 
ened to  the  top  of  the  fruit  long  after  their  work  has  been  finished. 
For  this  reason  the  sepals  of  such  plants  as  guava  are  called  "  per- 
sistent." The  seed  of  guava  is  scattered  by  birds  which  are  very 
fond  of  pecking  at  the  ripe  fruit.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  edible 
part  of  the  fruit  is  more  for  the  purpose  of  attracting  birds  than  for 
attracting  men. 


122  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

COFFEE 

COFFEE  and  tea  are  the  two  most  common  kinds  of  drinks 
which  are  made  from  plants.  Both  are  largely  used  in  all  parts  of 
the  world  and  there  is  always  a  good  market-price  for  them.  They 
are  considered  necessities  by  most  people,  yet  the  drinking  of  too 
much  coffee  or  tea  is  certainly  not  good  for  one's  health. 

Tea  is  made  from  the  leaves  of  the  tea-plant,  but  in  the  coffee- 
plant  it  is  the  seeds  which  are  the  valuable  part.  In  each  fruit  or 
"berry"  of  this  plant  two  seeds  are  found.  (A  small  fruit  which 
has  a  soft  pulp  is  often  called  a  berry,  just  as  long,  narrow  fruits 
which  have  the  seeds  in  a  row  are  called  pods.)  The  coffee- 
berries  are  soft,  round,  and  dark  red  when  they  are  ripe.  They  are 
about  a  third  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  Inside  the  berry  two  hard 
seeds  are  found  which  take  up  most  of  the  space.  They  are  shaped 
something  like  beans,  and  are  snugly  packed  in  the  pulp  with  their 
flat  sides  facing  each  other.  You  have  probably  often  noticed  that 
the  coffee-beans  which  are  sold  in  the  market  have  one  flat  side, 
while  the  rest  is  round.  This  is  on  account  of  the  way  in  which  the 
beans  are  formed  ;  two  in  a  berry  and  facing  each  other.  The 
young  ovules  of  coffee  are  round,  but  as  they  grow  into  seeds  they 
press  against  each  other  and  become  flat  on  one  side. 

When  coffee  beans  are  ready  for  the  coffee-pot  they  are  brown, 
but  when  they  are  on  the  plant  they  are  never  brown,  nor  do  they 
have  the  pleasant  odor  which  comes  from  them  when  they  are 
ready  for  use.  No  matter  how  much  you  might  examine  a  coffee- 
plant  in  the  natural  condition  you  would  never  detect  anything  like 


Coffee. 


124  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

the  pleasant  fragrance  which  comes  from  a  steaming  coffee-pot.  It 
is  the  artificial  treatment  which  men  give  to  the  seeds  which  brings 
out  the  pleasant  taste  and  odor. 

Much  has  to  be  done  to  the  seeds  from  the  time  they  are 
picked  from  the  plant  until  the  time  they  are  ready  for  the  market. 
First,  they  must  be  cured.  You  learned  of  this  process  in  the 
chapter  about  tobacco,  but  the  curing  of  coffee  is  quite  different 
from  the  curing  of  tobacco.  In  coffee-curing  the  seeds  are  first 
cleaned  of  the  pulp  and  skin  of  the  berry  which  surround  them,  and 
then  dried.  Well-cured  coffee  is  dry,  hard,  and  brittle.  It  has  a 
deep-green  color  and  a  strong  and  pleasant  smell.  After  the  coffee 
is  cured,  it  may  be  shipped  from  the  plantations  to  the  mills  where 
the  rest  of  the  work  preparing  it  for  the  market  is  done.  On  the 
docks  of  New  York  and  San  Francisco  may  be  seen  thousands  of 
sacks  of  this  green,  cured  coffee,  which  has  been  brought  from  the 
coffee-plantations  of  the  West  Indies,  Mexico,  and  Central  Amer- 
ica. It  is  hoped  that  in  the  future  a  good  share  of  the  coffee  used 
in  the  United  States  may  be  grown  in  the  Philippine  Islands. 

After  it  is  cured,  the  coffee  must  be  roasted.  This  makes  the 
beans  brown  and  crisp  and  brings  out  their  good  flavor.  Now  for 
the  first  time  the  coffee  begins  to  have  the  pleasant  odor  which 
makes  it  such  a  popular  drink.  Roasting  does  for  the  coffee-beans 
just  about  what  fermentation  does  for  tobacco-leaves.  The  roasting 
must  be  done  very  carefully  if  we  are  to  have  a  good  quality. 

The  last  process  in  preparing  coffee  for  use  in  the  kitchen  is 
to  grind  it  up  in  a  mill.  Coffee  will  not  have  a  rich  flavor  if  it  is 
boiled  without  grinding.  From  all  this  you  see  that  it  is  no  simple 
matter  to  prepare  this  plant  product  for  the  market  even  after  the 
work  of  cultivation  is  done. 

The  coffee-plant  is  a  small  tree  which  bears  a  great  number  of 


COFFEE  125 

berries.  The  flowers,  as  you  can  see  in  the  picture,  are  borne  in 
inflorescences  at  the  joints  of  the  branches.  Since  the  fruit  is 
hardly  larger  than  the  flower,  there  is  room  for  a  berry  to  be 
formed  from  each  blossom.  The  flowers  are  very  pretty,  with  their 
five  white  petals  and  five  long  stamens  with  red  anthers.  They 
have  a  pleasant  odor.  The  beauty  of  a  coffee-plantation  does  not 
disappear  when  the  flowers  are  gone,  for  the  red  berries,  showing 
through  the  dark -green  leaves,  make  a  fine  sight. 

The  trees  are  usually  well  trimmed  and  set  out  in  straight  rows. 
Like  tobacco-plants,  the  coffee  is  "  topped  "  when  it  is  young,  but 
of  course  not  for  the  same  reason.  If  the  top  is  nipped  off  when 
the  plant  is  three  or  four  feet  high,  the  side  branches  will  grow  and 
spread  out.  This  makes  it  much  easier  to  pick  the  fruit  and  the 
trees  are  not  so  much  exposed  to  the  high  winds. 

Coffee-trees,  like  cacao,  need  shade  when  they  are  young. 
Banana-plants  are  often  used  for  this  purpose.  When  the  tree  is 
old  enough  to  bear  fruit,  the  shade-plants  may  be  removed,  for 
mature  coffee  can  stand  a  good  deal  of  sunlight. 

When  land  is  cleared  for  starting  a  coffee-plantation,  the  bushes 
and  weeds  should  be  left  to  rot  for  fertilizers.  The  plants  should 
be  grown  from  seed  in  special  beds  where  the  soil  is  moist,  rich,  and 
deep.  These  are  often  called  "  nursery-beds."  (A  plant-nursery  is 
any  place  where  young  plants,  usually  young  trees,  are  grown  to  be 
transplanted  after  they  have  a  good  start.)  Coffee-seeds  are  sown 
fresh  from  the  berries  and  are  set  a  few  inches  apart.  The  young 
plants  must  be  kept  free  from  weeds  and  well  watered.  Coffee 
likes  a  loamy  soil.  Clay  is  too  stiff. 

When  the  young  trees  are  set  out  in  the  fields  they  should  be 
put  about  six  feet  from  each  other.  Since  they  like  plenty  of  air 
and  sunlight,  they  can  not  be  planted  as  close  as  cacao.  In  the 

18 


126 


A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 


places  where  the  young  trees  are  set  out  the  soil  must  be  carefully 
loosened  and  all  stones  taken  out. 

After  the  young  trees  have  begun  to  grow  vigorously  in  their 
new  home,  the  side-shoots  or  suckers  should  be  cut  away,  as  in 
tobacco-culture.  If  all  the  shoots  are  allowed  to  grow,  the  tree 
becomes  thick  and  matted,  so  that  air  and  light  do  not  get  to  the 
center  very  well  and  the  crop  is  poor.  This  cutting  away  of  the 
unnecessary  branches  of  a  tree  is  called  "  pruning." 

The  berries  should  be  gathered  when  they  have  turned  red.  A 
machine  called  a  "  pulper  "  is  usually  used  to  separate  the  seeds  from 

the  rest  of  the 
berry.  This  ma- 
chine has  a  rough 
roller  which  crush- 
es the  berries.  Be- 
low the  roller  there 
is  a  sloping  sieve 
down  which  the 
mashed -up  pulp 
rolls  away,  while 
the  seeds  drop 
through  it.  Then 
the  seeds  are  put 
in  a  tank  for  a  day 

or  two,  so  that  the  pulp  which  still  sticks  to  them  may  be  washed 
away.     After  that  the  seeds  are  ready  to  be  dried. 

Coffee  is  grown  in  several  different  places  in  the  Philippine 
Islands,  but  especially  in  the  province  of  Batangas.  Much  has  been 
planted  near  the  town  of  San  Pablo.  It  is  usually  better  to  grow 
coffee  at  least  a  few  hundred  feet  above  sea-level.  This  is  one  rea- 


A  coffee  plantation. 


PINA   OR   PINEAPPLE  12? 

son  why  the  Agricultural  Bureau  has  chosen  Lipa,  in  the  province 
of  Batangas,  for  the  site  of  its  experimental  coffee-plantation. 
Some  excellent  coffee  is  grown  in  northern  Luzon,  but  coffee- 
growing  may  still  be  called  one  of  the  "  infant  industries"  of  the 
Philippines. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

PlftA      OR      PINEAPPLE 

is  one  of  the  economic  plants  of  the  Philippines  which 
has  two  very  different  uses,  for  both  of  which  it  is  excellent.  What 
are  these  uses  ? 

In  the  first  chapter  about  pan  dan  you  learned  that  the  fruit  of 
pina  is  called  in  English  a  pineapple,  though  in  many  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonies  it  is  called  simply  a  "  pine."  In  the  United  States  it  is 
called  pineapple,  though  it  would  indeed  be  difficult  to  find  any 
fruit  which  looks  less  like  an  apple  than  this  one. 

The  pineapple  grows  only  in  the  tropics,  yet  it  may  be  sent  to 
all  parts  of  the  temperate  regions  without  danger  of  decay  if  it  is 
carefully  packed.  So  this  excellent  fruit  has  become  well  known 
all  over  the  world.  Its  peculiar,  sweet  taste  has  made  it  very  popu- 
lar. Of  the  fruits  shipped  from  the  American  tropics  into  the 
United  States,  the  banana  alone  is  more  important  than  the  pine- 
apple. 

Though  this  fruit  is  very  agreeable  to  eat,  it  is  not  very  easy  to 
digest.  It  does  not  have  such  good  food-qualities  as  the  fruit  of 
banana  or  papaya.  Its  pulp  is  not  so  soft  and  nutritious.  You  are 
almost  sure  to  be  ill  if  you  eat  too  much  of  it.  Padre  Blanco 


128  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

writes  that  Filipino  boys  sometimes  bleed  at  the  mouth  from  eating 
too  much  pineapple.  Has  it  ever  made  you  sick  ? 

Though  the  pineapple  is  not  a  native  plant  of  the  Philippines, 
it  may  be  cultivated  in  all  parts  of  the  Islands.  In  the  Visayan 
group  this  plant  is  grown  especially  for  the  sake  of  its  leaves. 
Surely  you  are  all  familiar  with  the  delicate  fabric  which  is  made 
from  the  fine  fibers  of  the  leaves  of  the  pineapple.  This  pina  cloth 
is  one  of  the  best-known  products  of  the  Philippines.  Much  of  it 
is  made  in  Iloilo.  Another  cloth,  known  as  pineapple  linen,  is 
made  in  China  from  these  same  leaves. 

Have  you  ever  seen  the  pineapple  growing  ?  Have  you  ever 
looked  for  the  stem  ?  If  so,  you  have  surely  been  disappointed,  for 
the  pineapple  is  practically  a  stemless  plant.  It  has  a  cluster  of 
stiff,  sharply  pointed  leaves  which  grow  close  to  the  ground.  From 
the  center  of  this  cluster  of  leaves,  the  flower-branch  arises,  carrying 
a  close  inflorescence  of  blue  flowers.  It  is  from  this  whole  inflores- 
cence that  the  fruit  is  formed,  just  as  the  fruit  of  pandan  is  formed 
from  the  inflorescence  of  female  flowers.  So,  you  see,  the  plant 
seems  to  have  no  need  for  a  stem.  The  sharp-pointed,  erect  leaves 
are  evidently  arranged  for  growing  in  bright  places,  where  the  plant 
does  not  need  a  stem  to  lift  its  leaves  up  into  the  light.  Since  the 
plant  is  not  a  wind-lover,  there  is  no  need  to  lift  the  flowers  up 
where  the  wind  would  be  sure  to  strike  them.  This  plant  saves  the 
work  of  making  a  stem. 

The  cultivation  of  the  pineapple  is  quite  simple.  It  does  not 
need  much  attention,  and  seems  to  have  few  enemies.  The  thick 
leaves  do  not  easily  die  when  there  is  little  water.  Of  all  cultivated 
plants,  probably  the  pineapple  needs  the  least  water,  and  can  live 
best  where  the  soil  is  not  rich.  If  you  are  going  to  start  a  garden 
of  pineapples,  it  is  best  to  set  out  the  little  suckers  which  come 


Pifia,  or  pineapple. 


130  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

from  the  base  of  the  mature  plants.  Another  way  is  to  transplant 
the  tuft  of  leaves  which  grows  above  the  fruit,  but  this  method  does 
not  seem  to  be  so  good  as  the  other. 

The  strong  spines  which  grow  from  the  edges  of  the  leaves 
make  the  pineapples  rather  difficult  to  handle.  In  many  tropical 
countries,  especially  in  the  West  Indies,  this  plant  is  cultivated  on 
large  farms.  When  the  men  work  among  them  they  wear  leggings 
and  stiff  gloves  to  protect  themselves  against  the  spines.  Can  you 
understand  the  purpose  of  these  spines  ?  Since  the  pineapple  is 
able  to  grow  in  places  which  are  dry  and  hot,  where  plants  with 
tender  leaves  can  not  grow,  it  has  all  the  more  need  to  protect  itself 
from  leaf-eating  animals. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  the  seeds  of  the  pineapple  ?  Can  you 
see  them  when  you  cut  a  fruit  in  slices  to  eat  it  ?  You  may  look 
at  the  fruit  a  long  time  without  ever  noticing  the  seeds.  Not  even 
seeds  so  small  and  weak  as  those  of  lacatan  are  to  be  found  in  the 
center  of  the  fruit,  but  if  you  look  carefully  at  the  outer  part  you 
may  find  them.  They  are  borne  very  close  to  the  outer  skin,  and 
are  usually  very  small.  There  are  other  well-known  fruits  which 
do  not  have  their  seeds  in  the  center.  Probably  you  have  all  heard 
of  the  strawberry  and  have  seen  pictures  of  it.  It  is  one  of  the 
finest  fruits  of  temperate  regions.  The  strawberry  carries  its  many 
small  seeds  on  the  outside  of  the  fruit,  so  that  the  birds  are  sure  to 
swallow  them  when  they  peck  at  it. 

When  pineapples  are  gathered,  if  they  are  to  be  shipped  to 
other  countries,  they  must  be  very  gently  handled  and  carefully 
packed,  for  they  will  quickly  rot  if  the  tough  skin  is  bruised  or 
injured  in  any  way.  So  long  as  the  skin  is  air-tight  the  fruit  keeps 
very  well.  Like  the  bananas,  if  they  are  to  be  shipped,  they  must 
be  gathered  before  they  are  ripe.  They  will  ripen  on  the  journey. 


PlftA  OR  PINEAPPLE  131 

It  is  rather  difficult  to  find  the  flowers  of  the  pineapple,  for 
they  quickly  disappear  and  the  fruit  begins  to  form.  When  flowers 
grow  in  such  close  inflorescences  it  does  not  take  long  to  accomplish 
the  work  of  pollination.  Then  the  flowers  disappear,  for  their  part 
of  the  work  of  reproduction  is  done,  and  the  plant  gives  its  whole 
attention  to  forming  the  fruit.  In  the  case  of  the  pineapple  this  is 
rather  a  slow  process,  for  a  large,  compound  fruit  is  to  be  formed 
from  the  working  together  of  many  little  flowers. 

If  you  do  find  the  flowers,  you  will  see  in  each  one  three  blue 
petals,  six  stamens,  and  a  three-parted,  fleshy  stigma  for  receiving  the 
pollen.  The  stamens  are  shorter  than  the  petals,  and  the  style  is  a 
little  longer  than  the  stamens.  At  the  bottom  of  the  flower  you  will 
find  a  small  calyx.  At  the  side  of  each  flower  is  a  stiff,  little  leaf, 
with  sharp  teeth,  like  the  teeth  of  a  saw,  along  its  edges.  These 
little  leaves,  with  their  saw-teeth,  are  there  for  the  same  purpose  as 
the  sharp  spines  along  the  edges  of  the  large  leaves.  They  are  for 
protection  against  hungry  and  thirsty  animals.  Of  course  when  the 
pineapple  is  growing  in  a  garden  it  really  needs  no  such  protection, 
yet  it  tells  us  very  plainly  by  its  structure  that  its  natural  home  is  in 
dry  and  sandy  places  where  a  sort  of  coat-of-armor  is  much  needed. 
Think  how  quickly  the  fruit  of  the  pineapple  would  be  eaten,  before 
it  is  ripe,  by  hungry  animals  if  it  were  not  so  well  protected  by  its 
stiff  and  spiny  coat !  If  we  did  not  have  knives  for  cutting  it  open, 
we  would  find  the  task  of  eating  this  fruit  very  difficult  ourselves. 


132  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

CHAPTER    XXIX 

CALACHUCHE 

THIS  strange  little  tree  is  to  be  found  in  many  Philippine  gar- 
dens. Its  light-colored  stems  and  branches,  its  large,  leathery  leaves, 
and  its  fragrant,  white  flowers  are  familiar  to  you  all.  Does  it  bear 
flowers  all  the  year  round,  or  only  at  certain  seasons  ? 

Calachuche  is  grown  in  other  parts  of  the  Oriental  tropics  quite 
as  much  as  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  yet  its  native  home  is  in  the 
American  tropics.  For  many  years  it  has  been  much  esteemed  in 
India  and  Ceylon  as  a  sacred  plant.  Great  heaps  of  the  fragrant  blos- 
soms are  placed  before  the  idol  in  Buddhist  temples  as  a  form  of  wor- 
ship. From  these  same  blossoms  a  pleasant  perfume  called  frangipani 
is  made.  Here  in  the  Philippines  the  flowers  of  calachuche  are 
much  prized  for  decorations,  since  they  do  not  wilt  easily.  They 
keep  their  fresh  look  long  after  they  are  picked,  and,  as  they  slowly 
wither,  the  sweet  odor  seems  to  become  even  sweeter  than  before. 

Have  you  ever  looked  for  the  stamens  and  pistil  in  the  flowers 
of  calachuche  ?  Have  you  ever  found  them  ?  Probably  not,  for 
the  flower  at  first  seems  to  be  perfectly  sterile.  A  sterile  flower  is 
one  which  produces  no  seed-making  parts.  The  five  white  and  yel- 
low petals  of  calachuche  unite  in  a  tube,  and  nothing  is  to  be  seen 
of  either  stamens  or  pistil,  whigh  are  the  seed-making  parts.  Even 
when  we  cut  the  flower  open  there  seems  to  be  nothing  inside  the 
corolla,  unless  you  look  very  carefully  just  at  the  bottom  of  the  tube. 
There  you  may  see  some  small  structures,  which,  upon  close  exami- 
nation, prove  to  be  five  stunted,  or  "  dwarf,"  stamens.  Can  you 
find  them  ?  These  dwarf  stamens  have  sharply  pointed  anthers,  but 


134  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

they  hardly  ever  have  any  pollen.  It  is  plain  that  they  are  parts  of 
the  plant  which  are  no  longer  needed.  Once  they  must  have  had  an 
important  work  to  perform,  but  now  the  plant  seems  to  have  almost 
forgotten  to  produce  them. 

Evidently  this  is  a  flower  which  has  lost  the  power  of  seed-pro- 
duction. Very  rarely  is  a  fruit  of  calachuche  found.  This  is  another 
case  of  a  plant  under  cultivation  which  has  given  up  the  work  of 
seed-making.  Do  you  know  what  means  of  reproduction  it  has 
instead  of  seeds  ?  Does  it  have  to  be  reproduced  in  an  artificial  way, 
that  is  by  the  aid  of  men  ? 

Though  the  power  of  seed-making  is  gone,  calachuche  seems  to 
still  hold  out  an  invitation  to  insect-visitors.  The  white  corollas 
with  their  orange-colored  centers  and  pleasant  fragrance,  are  surely 
for  the  purpose  of  attracting  flying  insects.  Have  you  ever  seen 
any  insects  visiting  them  ? 

The  petals  are  thick,  which  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  flow- 
ers remain  fresh  so  long  after  they  have  been  taken  from  the  tree. 
They  have  enough  moisture  in  them  to  keep  from  drying  out  very 
soon,  as  the  thin  petals  of  gumamela  do  in  a  very  short  time  after 
they  have  been  taken  from  the  bush.  The  petals  of  calachuche  also 
have  the  peculiar  habit  of  overlapping.  The  edge  of  each  one 
covers  the  edge  of  its  neighbor  on  one  side,  and  is  covered  by  the 
edge  of  its  neighbor  on  the  other  side.  Do  you  know  any  other 
flowers  whose  petals  have  this  habit  ? 

After  all,  there  is  nothing  very  new  to  us  in  the  flower  of 
calachuche.  We  have  already  studied  flowers  which  have  lost  the 
power  of  producing  good  seed.  Which  flowers  were  they  ?  That 
fact  is  an  old  story  to  you.  But  there  is  another  very  important 
fact  of  plant  life  which  you  have  not  yet  learned,  and  which  cala- 
chuche illustrates  for  us  better  than  any  plant  which  you  have 


CALACHUCHE  135 

studied.  That  is  the  fact  that  rest  is  necessary  for  plants  just  as  it  is 
for  animals.  They  can  not  work  all  the  time.  Have  you  ever  seen 
a  calachuche-tree  at  rest  ? 

Some  plants,  of  which  the  tree  you  call  acacia  is  the  most  com- 
mon example,  seem  to  close  their  leaves  at  night.  Have  you  ever 
noticed  the  acacia  folding  up  the  leaflets  of  its  compound  leaves 
about  the  time  the  sun  goes  down  ?  This  habit  makes  the  acacia 
one  of  the  most  desirable  trees  to  have  near  our  houses  and  along 
our  streets.  In  the  daytime  it  gives  a  splendid  shade,  and  at  night 
its  leaves  fold  up  so  that  all  the  refreshing  breeze  can  reach  us.  Do 
you  know  any  plants  besides  acacia  which  close  their  leaves  at 
night?  Sometimes  this  closing  of  leaves  at  night  is  called  the 
"  sleep  of  plants,"  yet  it  should  not  be  compared  with  the  sleep  of 
animals,  for  the  plant  is  really  at  work  all  night  long.  The  rest  of 
plants  is  quite  different  from  the  folding  up  of  leaves  at  night. 

Now  we  can  tell  very  easily  when  the  calachuche  is  at  rest,  at 
least  from  the  work  of  food-making,  or  leaf-work,  for  then  it  loses 
all  its  leaves.  Some  other  common  trees  of  the  Philippine  Islands 
lose  all  their  leaves  at  one  time.  Cupang  and  dap-dap  are  examples. 
Do  you  know  any  others  ?  Trees  which  remain  for  some  months 
without  leaves  are  not  common  in  the  tropics.  They  are  the  excep- 
tions to  a  general  rule.  Most  of  the  trees  are  covered  with  leaves 
the  year  round,  yet  we  may  be  sure  that  even  these  trees  do  take  a 
rest  from  leaf-work.  They  seem  to  be  quite  different  from  trees 
like  calachuche,  for  one  part  of  the  tree  rests  and  then  another  part ; 
not  the  whole  tree  at  once.  While  some  branches,  or  parts  of 
branches  are  at  rest,  all  the  other  parts  of  the  plant  are  hard  at 
work.  So,  unless  we  watch  the  plant  very  carefully,  it  seems  to  us 
to  be  at  work  all  the  time. 

This  is  a  fact  of  plant  life  which  is  also  illustrated  by  the  way 


136  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

in  which  flowers  appear.  How  many  plants  do  you  know  which 
bear  flowers  the  whole  year  round  ?  Most  plants  seem  to  save  up 
their  strength  for  a.  particular  season,  and  do  the  work  of  flower- 
bearing  only  at  that  time.  Some  plants  bear  flowers  first  on  one 
part,  then  on  another  The  tree  which  you  call  ditaa  is  an  example 
of  such  plants.  The  many,  little,  white  flowers  of  ditaa  appear  first 
upon  several  branches.  Then  the  tree  seems  to  take  a  rest  for  two 
or  three  weeks.  Then  the  flowers  begin  to  appear  again  upon  other 
branches.  So  the  ditaa  often  seems  to  have  three  or  four  different 
times  of  flower-bearing,  but  really  this  is  only  because  the  work  is 
not  done  by  the  whole  plant  at  the  same  time.  Perhaps  this  is 
because  the  plant  can  not  make  food  enough  to  supply  flowers  upon 
all  its  branches  at  the  same  time.  Have  you  ever  noticed  any  plants 
besides  ditaa  which  have  this  habit  ? 

In  the  temperate  regions,  as  you  know,  nearly  all  the  trees  lose 
their  leaves  as  winter  comes  near.  In  the  tropics  there  is  no  such 
general  loss  of  the  leaves  at  one  time,  and  this  is  probably  the  great- 
est difference  between  plant  life  in  temperate  regions  and  that  in  the 
tropics.  In  temperate  regions  plants  are  forced  to  take  their  chief 
rest  in  the  winter,  for  then  water  is  turned  to  ice.  You  have  already 
learned  how  necessary  water  is  to  plant-work.  Yet  you  must  not 
suppose  that  even  in  winter  the  trees  are  entirely  at  rest.  Of  course 
many  small  plants  die  when  the  cold  weather  comes,  and  grow  up 
again  from  seeds  or  bulbs  in  the  warm  spring  months.  These  are 
called  annual  plants.  But  the  trees,  which  grow  for  many  years,  do 
not  stop  all  their  work  in  the  winter.  Deep  under  the  ground, 
where  the  water  does  not  turn  to  ice,  their  roots  keep  on  growing. 

Now  in  the  tropics  there  is  usually  no  time  of  year  at  which 
the  plants  are  forced  to  take  their  rest.  They  seem  to  be  able 
to  choose  their  own  time  for  resting.  The  conditions  of  weather 


DAP-DAP   AND   SPANISH   FLAG  137 

nearly  always  permit  them  to  be  at  work,  unless  there  is  some  other 
reason,  which  we  cannot  see,  which  prevents  them.  For  this  reason 
people  often  think  that  tropical  plants  work  the  whole  year  long. 
Yet  we  have  learned  that,  even  if  the  weather  is  always  pleasant, 
the  plants  must  rest  at  some  time  or  other.  Calachuche  proves  this 
to  uSo  There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  it  should  not  bear  leaves 
at  one  time  just  about  as  well  as  at  another,  yet  we  know  that  it  is 
always  certain  to  take  a  long  rest. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  that  the  flowers  of  calachuche  some- 
times appear  while  the  tree  still  has  very  few  leaves  ?  This  shows 
us  that  the  plant  has  stored  up  in  its  stem  and  roots  enough  food  to 
produce  these  flowers  without  the  help  of  the  new  leaves.  You 
have  learned  that  the  green  parts  of  plants  are  the  only  parts  which 
can  make  food,  and  you  know  that  nothing  can  grow  when  there  is 
no  food.  So,  when  the  plant  grows  while  there  are  no  green  parts 
on  it,  we  may  be  sure  that  a  good  deal  of  food  was  stored  up  when 
the  leaves  were  at  work  before. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

DAP-DAP    AND    SPANISH    FLAG 

THE  awkward  red  flowers  of  dap-dap,  and  the  very  graceful 
red  and  yellow  ones  of  Spanish  Flag,  are  both  quite  different  indeed 
from  those  you  have  already  studied.  A  tree  of  dap-dap  in  full 
bloom  is  a  very  striking  and  handsome  sight.  The  flowers  are 
massed  in  large  inflorescences,  and  the  brilliant  color  of  their  large 
petals  makes  the  tree  as  striking  to  the  eye  as  though  it  were  in 

19 


Dap-dap. 


DAP-DAP   AND   SPANISH   FLAG  139 

flames  at  night.  Yet  how  awkward  and  graceless  is  a  single  one  of 
the  flowers  of  this  handsome  plant  when  it  is  separated  from  the 
inflorescence  !  Its  loose,  ungainly  structure  is  only  redeemed  by  its 
splendid  color. 

What  flower  is  there,  on  the  other  hand,  which  has  a  more 
graceful  and  exquisite  form  than  the  Spanish  Flag  ?  Its  beauty  is 
made  all  the  more  evident  by  the  dignified  way  in  which  the  flowers 
are  carried.  The  loose  and  slender-stemmed  inflorescences  of  this 
plant  give  each  flower  ample  room  in  which  to  extend  its  curving, 
separate  petals.  They  are  not  huddled  together  in  a  close  bunch  as 
the  flowers  of  dap-dap.  It  seems  as  though  the  dap-dap  were  trying 
to  get  the  most  striking  color-effect  by  massing  its  brilliant  flowers 
close  together,  at  the  same  time  concealing  their  ungainly  shape. 
The  Spanish  Flag,  however,  has  nothing  to  hide.  How  proudly  it 
extends  each  petal  and  stamen,  as  though  to  invite  close  inspec- 
tion !  What  the  Spanish  Flag  loses  in  masses  of  color,  it  seems  to 
make  up  in  dignity  and  grace.  Which  of  these  two  handsome 
flowers  do  you  think  would  attract  you  first  ? 

Dap-dap  and  Spanish  Flag  both  belong  to  that  great  family  of 
tropical  plants  which  you  learned  about  in  the  chapter  on  macahia, 
the  family  Leguminosae,  whose  fruits  are  called  pods.  The  plants 
which  form  one  great  division  of  this  family  bear  flowers  which  are 
very  irregular  in  structure,  and  the  dap-dap  is  an  example  of  this 
division.  The  macahia,  on  the  other  hand,  belongs  to  another 
division  whose  flowers  are  quite  regular,  as  you  have  seen  for  your- 
self. Now  there  is  a  third  division  whose  flowers  are  less  regular 
than  those  of  macahia,  but  more  regular  than  those  of  dap-dap. 
The  Spanish  Flag  is  an  example  of  this  division.  You  might  well 
believe  that  flowers  so  different  as  these  would  belong  to  separate 
families,  but  their  kinship  is  shown  by  the  fruits  they  bear.  Every 


140  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

one  of  them  produces  a  pod-fruit  which,  as  you  know,  is  quite  dif- 
ferent from  all  other  kinds  of  fruit. 

The  only  other  irregular  flower  which  you  have  studied  is  that 
of  butuhan,  yet  the  corolla  of  butuhan  is  quite  regular  as  compared 
with  that  of  dap-dap.  A  regular  flower  is  one  which  may  be  divided 
Into  similar  halves  in  more  than  one  way.  It  is  said  to  have  "  radial 
symmetry,"  as  a  wheel  has  radial  symmetry,  because  it  may  be 
divided  into  similar  halves  along  different  lines  which  pass  through 
the  center.  Probably  you  have  already  learned  that  a  line  from  the 
center  to  the  outside  of  a  circle  is  called  a  "  radius,"  and  that  any- 
thing which  has  a  regular  shape  is  said  to  have  "symmetry."  Now 
it  is  very  easy  to  see  that  neither  the  flower  of  dap-dap  nor  the 
flower  of  Spanish  Flag  has  radial  symmetry.  So  they  are  called 
irregular.  Some  of  the  most  beautiful  flowers  that  grow  in  the 
tropics  are  irregular.  The  orchids,  which  belong  to  the  class  of 
plants  you  call  "dapo,"  are  thought  by  most  people  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  flowers.  They  are  all  irregular.  Each  different 
shape  is  probably  for  the  purpose  of  attracting  a  different  kind  of 
insect.  You  can  better  understand  how  important  the  work  of 
cross-pollination  is  when  you  think  of  the  many  strange  shapes  and 
structures,  colors  and  odors,  which  different  flowers  have,  and  which 
plants  seem  to  have  invented  simply  for  the  purpose  of  attracting 
insects. 

The  dap-dap  is  like  calachuche  in  losing  nearly  all  of  its  leaves 
in  certain  months  of  the  year.  Can  you  tell  the  months  in  which 
calachuche  and  dap-dap  have  no  leaves  ?  The  leaves  of  dap-dap  are 
compound  and  divided  into  three,  large,  heart-shaped  leaflets,  as 
you  may  see  in  the  picture.  It  is  quite  exceptional  to  find  a  mem- 
ber of  this  great  plant-family  whose  compound  leaves  are  divided 
into  only  three  leaflets.  Usually  there  are  several  pairs  of  leaflets. 


Spanish  Flag, 


142  A  NATURE  STUDY  READER 

as  you  have  seen  in  the  leaves  of  macahia  and  acacia.  The  one  at 
the  end  is  said  to  be  "terminal."  The  ones  at  the  side  are  said  to 
be  "  lateral." 

Do  you  think  that  the  flower  of  dap-dap  looks  at  all  like  a 
butterfly  ?  That  division  of  plants  to  which  dap-dap  belongs,  on 
account  of  the  shape  of  the  flowers,  takes  its  name  from  a  Latin 
word  meaning  butterfly.  Do  you  know  any  other  plants  with 
flowers  of  this  shape  ?  They  are  quite  common  in  the  Philippines. 
How  many  stamens  do  you  find  in  the  flower  of  dap-dap  ?  Can 
you  think  of  any  reason  why  they  should  have  such  very  long  fila- 
ments ?  That  long,  slender  part  of  the  stamen  which  is  below  the 
anther  is  called  the  "  filament."  At  what  time  of  year  can  you  find 
the  pods  of  dap-dap  ?  Do  you  know  any  useful  purpose  for  them  ? 
Is  medicine  ever  made  from  the  bark  or  fruit  of  this  plant  ? 

If  you  can  get  a  flower  of  the  Spanish  Flag  you  should  study  it 
carefully  and  compare  it  with  that  of  dap-dap.  Probably  there  is 
no  other  flower  whose  colors  are  so  nearly  like  those  of  the  flag  of 
Spain.  The  anthers  are  the  only  parts  which  are  not  either  red  or 
yellow.  They  are  dark  purple,  and  since  they  are  so  prominent  you 
can  easily  examine  their  structure.  Nearly  all  anthers  are  joined  to 
the  filaments  at  one  end,  but  the  anthers  of  this  flower  are  fastened 
in  the  middle.  They  move  easily,  as  though  they  were  fastened  on 
a  hinge.  Do  you  think  that  this  arrangement  makes  it  more  certain 
that  the  visiting  insect  will  carry  pollen  away  with  him  ?  Now  if 
you  look  at  an  old  flower,  before  it  has  begun  to  wither,  you  can  see 
how  the  pollen  escapes  from  the  anther.  Old  anthers  are  open  and 
empty.  The  opening  by  which  the  pollen  has  escaped  is  a  long  slit 
in  the  side.  Some  anthers  open  by  little  holes  in  the  ends. 

You  can  understand  the  structure  of  the  flower  best  if  you  open 
a  bud  and  see  how  the  young  parts  are  snugly  packed  away  in  their 


DAP-DAP   AND   SPANISH   FLAG 

covering.  The  whole  bud  is  covered  by  one  of  the  sepals,  which 
has  the  shape  of  a  hood.  When  the  flower  is  open  this  hood-shaped 
sepal  is  on  the  under  side.  You  might  easily  mistake  it  for  a  petal 
unless  you  look  carefully,  for  it  is  colored  and  much  larger  than  the 
other  sepals.  Inside  the  bud  you  will  find  the  ten  stamens  with 
their  long  filaments  all  very 
smoothly  folded  together.  There 
are  five  petals,  and  they  have 
three  different  shapes.  The  odd 
one  stands  up  between  the 
others  at  the  top  of  the  flower 
and  is  called  the  "  standard." 
The  hood-shaped  sepal  is  some- 
times called  the  "  keel,"  because 
it  resembles  the  keel  of  a  boat. 
Have  you  ever  noticed  that  the 
yellow  color  of  the  petals  gradu- 
ally fades  as  the  flowers  become 

older  ?  Old  flowers  are  almost  entirely  red.  The  pod  of  this  plant 
is  flat,  as  though  it  had  been  pressed.  Do  you  know  any  other 
plants  of  this  family  which  have  flat  pods  ?  The  compound  leaves 
of  Spanish  Flag  have  seven  or  eight  pairs  of  leaflets,  and  are  folded 
up  at  night  like  the  leaves  of  acacia. 

Thus,  each  new  plant  which  you  examine  will  teach  you  much 
about  the  lives  of  plants,  and  their  value  and  importance  to  man, 
who  could  not  live  without  their  help. 


A  single  flower  of  the  Spanish  Flag,  and  a 
bud  with  calyx  and  corolla  removed. 


THE    END 


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